


The Tattooed Stranger

by EDEN23



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Complicated Relationships, Concentration Camps, F/M, New York City, Non-Linear Narrative, Origin Story, Revenge, Unplanned Pregnancy, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EDEN23/pseuds/EDEN23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a chance encounter, a young immigrant in New York finds herself confronting her past when she meets Erik Lehnsherr in the summer of 1956.<br/>The events that follow will transform their lives forever, for better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy reading... Leave feedback?

**Austria, 1943**

 

"Magda!  _Magda!_ " Her elder brother Karl, a crooked smile on his thin face, stood outside their little wooden house in the icy snow. He was motioning her towards him but she kept back, frowning at him. She was too tired and weak to fight with him today.

She shivered while walking on through the camp ground, feeling the slow cold torrent of a running nose slide down her bottom lip. Again her brother called her. It was a sign that he had something to show off.  
She told him to go away as she picked up the nearest scraps of wood that she could find, willing her frozen fingers to grab onto the prickly bark.  
Her brother retorted, this time speaking in German.  
She made another unsophisticated and blunt reply. She did not like speaking German.  
"Dummkopf!" He called out. He watched her come slowly over with the little spiky pile of wood. He was soon to be thirteen and was the third eldest of the family. He watched her, tall and gangly for his age just like she was. She was six, although sometimes her birthday would be forgotten and she would have to think long and hard, estimating something that was accurate.  
Now she was close enough, she could see that he was holding four small round balls in-between his fingers-two in each hand.  
Envy crossed her face and her pale brows almost knitted together in frustration.  _Father had taught him a new trick!_

His thin and sunken face lit up for those few moments as he moved the carved wooden balls so that they wriggled through his fingers at the same time, as if they had come alive and were moving to their own accord since his fingers barely moved.  
Karl was her only rival for learning Father's secrets. He and Magda were constantly at odds, pleading and pawing their father every time he sat down, tired from another day of labour. Both were obsessed with magic. With every new trick learned another illusion was shattered, but somehow it never seemed any less magical. Her father still beguiled even their mother with his card tricks and the impossible things that he could procure from the thin coat he always wore. Magda still liked to feel it now and then when it dried at the fire. Every inch was searched for hidden pockets or compartments. None had been found.

She stomped on past once she was sure he was doing it correctly, into the house that was once a wagon in which they travelled the country in.  
She missed the freedom, the fleeting road that vanished to reveal new places, sights and people. She missed the long summer days and nights, picking flowers and fruit in orchards. But now the German's had told them to stay put. They were not permitted to travel any longer.

"Magda!" Her elder sister Johann sat in the dark beside the smoking fire, holding a crying baby. She told her to take off her shoes. Magda complied with some grumbling before stomping over to the fire to feed it with wood, then marched like a soldier back into her corner where she sat, curled up and internally grumbling about hunger, frozen toes and now her brother.

Her thoughts were interrupted now and then by Johann's coughing. It's sound made her flinch, like it was the sound of death itself. Her sister now stayed at home while Mother, Father and eldest brother Stefan worked in the factory.

She eagerly awaited her father's return, determined to learn something that was superior to Karl's latest achievement.

...

She had been waiting all evening for her father as she was curled up in her corner. She liked the corner best because there was no holes in the wood that let in icy drafts. She almost felt warm when she was curled up for a few hours under a blanket and some straw.  
She impatiently watched the door as she rested her head on her skinny knees until she finally she heard it. The sound of the workers returning from the big factory. She could hear the slow shuffle and the mumbling of men and women, exhausted and cold.

Johann slowly looked up from the sleeping baby, from here only her thin silhouette could be seen. Sometimes the shadow looked like that of a skull and frightened her, but then it would return to normal in the light. Their mother went to work instead of poor Johann these days. Magda missed her parents as soon as they left each morning.

The sound of footsteps made her jump as she got up swiftly, ignoring the pain of her joints. She could hear it was Father first and opened the door quickly so that she could wrap her arms around him.  
Outside, it was so cold it made her blink back tears of shock as the cold wind slapped her in the face. A cold hand settled on her head as she pulled back into the shack that was warm in comparison.  
"Magda..." Her father always pronounced her name in the German way. It was only he that was allowed to do that. She stumbled backwards as she remained tight by his side, impatiently waiting for him to take off the frozen leather boots. Her mother and elder brother followed in, shutting the wooden door behind them and pulling an old rug over it to keep out the droughts.

She remained silent as the three slowly took off their wet coats and boots, their purple fingers shook as the water dripped off them. She held her tongue as her parents and brother was talking in hushed voices. She was not sure if it was because it was from fatigue or that it was secretive. They were talking about men coming for blood. Blood was important, they had been told that people of pure blood was safe, therefore she was a little worried.  
Other members of their community had commented on her looks before, and while it was a well known fact that there was no such thing as a "Gypsy curse" they were still superstitious and saw her light skin, eyes and hair as a bad omen. The old ladies said that  _proper_  Roma gypsy girls had black, poker straight hair. She wondered sometimes if she'd be taken away in the dead of night by soldiers because of it.

Her father was comforting Mother, her face slowly unwinding the taught expression that knotted her face. He said that the rumour was that the soldiers would arrive tomorrow morning. He said that they would be marched somewhere, perhaps a government office, to trace their descendants and purity. Her father smiled sadly as he glanced at her. She wondered if he was thinking about the other families who weren't like them. She remembered how proud she used to be of her family. They were respected as one of the best fighting families, her father's brothers especially were renowned for their skill, beating opponents throughout the country for the family honour. Although Father was equally capable, he relied on his wits and sharp mind instead. That, and of course "Grandfather's gift". Something that had always confused her, since it was always mentioned in whispers and when she did ask she was told off sharply. She assumed that it was a secret stash of gold or jewels that was secret so no one would steal them. All she knew was that it skipped a generation apparently. She was rather disappointed she wasn't getting it, whatever it was.

As she sat at the fire surrounded by her family, she felt worried but safe. No matter what, they would be together. That's how the Roma where. They stuck together no matter what. No force on earth would be able to separate them. Her father told many tales of how their ancestors survived many centuries of persecution.

Soon they would be free again.

 

 

**Auschwitz II-Birkenau**

They had been standing for hours, or if you counted the journey in the cattle wagons, they had been standing for days in conditions that was beyond words. It was what she had imaged hell to be like, only with more flames and less stench.  
They had been told to leave their homes and their great number marched for miles. Even the sick and elderly. She worried most for Johann, her eldest, beautiful yet oddly named sister. The weak had marched on the inside to stay warm and to avoid the possible violence from soldiers ordering them to move quicker.

They had been told that they were going somewhere nearby that day, but rumours were that they were in Poland now. Why? No one knew. Some were panicking. Mothers screamed for their children. Elderly women closed their eyes, muttering to themselves. Her family stayed close, her eldest brother Stefan kept his arm around her. She hid under his thin coat, not embarrassed to seem childish for once. She was scared to death. She could see it in everyone's faces.

When they were initially herded off the wagons, they emerged to see a place that looked rather like a train station. The huts had boxes of flowers in the windows and everyone was a little more settled until they marched past them and a smell that was worse than anything she had smelled before hit their noses.  
They were walking to a place that looked like a prison and her brother Stefan, who rarely even spoke to her usually, held her tighter as they stuck with their family. As if sensing her fear he bent his head down to hers, whispering that their father would find a way to get them out. He offered her a little bread he had been saving as a freezing wind blew through them. She shook her head. For the first time in six months she didn't feel hungry.

They stood in line as the crowd in front disappeared. They waited.

An hour later it was their turn to line up. Immediately a voice rang, calling men to separate from the women and children. The soldiers brandished their guns as they said that everyone would be reunited soon.

Magda looked around, trying to see past the bustling crowd. The soldiers where talking to men who were dressed a little differently, constantly glancing at the crowd. One smoked a cigarette as he looked a little frustrated. These men were SS doctors.

Her father looked at them all, his once healthy olive completion was grey like the ash that covered the ground on which they stood. Reluctantly he and her brothers went over with the other men for selection. She stared on nervously as she watched the doctors begin the selection.

A few older girls in the line were being picked out as they stood. Her mother was being questioned as she hid her whimpering baby sister underneath her coat. A solemn man who seemed to be almost hunched over with glasses had a pen in hand as he looked at them all, asking if they were gypsies before calling to the guards that the selection would take longer today. He slicked a hand over his prematurely thinning light brown hair, he was not yet middle-aged.  
Magda stood watching the man with fear, not taking her eyes off him. As if he could smell her fear, he suddenly settled his intense gaze on her. He stopped, hands behind his back. Those around her flinched. She froze, rooted to the ground in fear.  
As he stared at her, the crowd of women and children had parted like the red sea. The doctor took one hand out from behind his back, his finger indicating her to come over.  
"Kommen."  
She looked left to right, desperately hopping that he was summoning someone else. But it was useless. He was not. He told her to come over again. Her mother was crying and shaking her head as she let go of her. She walked towards him with a thudding heart, every fibre of her being tried to stop her. She was a few feet away from him. A little water leaked from an eye as she shook, staring at the ground and her boots. They were about three sizes too big and water leaked through the left sole.  
"Nachschlagen."  
She was startled as she obeyed, looking upwards. She watched him look into her eyes, searching before he nodded his head in approval before walking on down the line.

Ten minutes later nine children including her stood, including a pair of seven-year-old twins. They stood close to each other. She was one of the tallest and eldest in the group.  
"Kinder kommen!" He stood, turning as some parents in line wailed after the little huddle moving away into the direction of gates. He laughed a little as he eyed the children, promising that they would meet their parents right after they has gotten something to eat.  
Each of their famished faces looked up with a look of watery hope in their eyes.

Pietro was amongst the men who stood solemnly in line before being ordered to march in the other direction. They had been told that everyone would meet again once the others had gotten a shower. He was about to join the others obediently but suddenly he saw the familiar wild sandy hair of his daughter following a small line of children who were being marched away to a different gate. It was only when he saw a pair of twins in the group panic gripped him. His green eyes suddenly grew wild as he pushed through the line of men. He had seen twins taken away before from the camp by doctors. They had never come back.

"Stopp!"  
He yelled after his daughter, pushing through wall after wall of sick, famished ghosts of gypsy men. He pleaded to the turned uniformed far-away back of the doctor, quickly trying to think of something that could save her from the unknown but certainly deadly fate.  
Immediately the soldiers told him to halt, a luger pistol pointed at his temple, cold metal sinking into his skull.  
He stood quite still, hands up. He closed his eyes, blocking out the cries and gasps from the crowd–a stillness settling over him as he concentrated.  
He called out to the doctor who stopped along with the children. The soldier screamed that he would shot him.  
"Ist es das, was Sie suchen?" Pietro called out, knowing that it was time.  
The doctor shook his head, the gypsy was clearly out of his mind and they were on a tight schedule. Immediately the soldier pulled the trigger without hesitation.  
A wail of a screaming child sounded but the gun merely clicked.

The doctor squinted as freezing rain came down for a moment. He could just about see the thin dark haired man reach into his thin jacket, pulling out a handful of bullets and letting most of them fall through his fingers and drop to the ground, splashing in the muck underneath his boots. The doctor let the reality of the situation sink in.  
"Aufhören! Aufhören!" The doctor screamed for the officers to put down their guns. Hope glinted in his small bulging eyes.  
It was an impossible feat, it was meant to be only in folklore that there was a strain of people–descendants of the Egyptians–who passed on the mysteries of the East that slowly travelled through the West, surviving hundreds of years of persecution while being secretive, no one really knew anything about them or their language.

Pietro saw from the Doctor's face that his hunch was right. He looked at his daughter, her large eyes staring back like a ghostly pale version of her mother.  
He knew that he had to bargain with them. He began to plead, asking them to let his daughter go, then a spark of inspiration hit him.  
"Sie ist Deutsch!" He yelled, before adding in Romani for Magda to play along. He spoke in German again, confessing that she was stolen as a baby. Why else would she have such fair eyes and hair?

The doctor sneered at the ploy, grabbing for the gangly skeletal girl. Even if she  _was_  German, it wouldn't make a difference. She would still be useful for research. Their obsessive experimentations needed more and more subjects. An Arian child would be extremely useful.  
He retorted that he would simply kill the little girl if he, the Zigeuner, did not comply and immediately follow him.

Madga watched as her father closed his eyes again. She held her breath, wishing she could do something and hoping her father would save her. She had a bad feeling about the man who had his hand on her shoulder, he had the  _prikasa_ about him. Bad luck.  
She held her breath as her father watched her with a peculiar look. His bright green eyes made him look all the more sick and grey in contrast to the rest of him. He was mouthing something in Roma–everything is fine–as he reached into his jacket once more, revealing a gun.

She sprinted towards her father before the claws of the doctor sunk through her skin and his fingers clasped around her collar bone like a handlebar on a bicycle. The mud gave her no grip as she was screaming in terror.  
Her father calmly began to speak, never once taking his eyes off her.

"Lasst sie los." He said. "Oder ich mich erschossen." Pietro clicked the gun, ready to shoot. "Sie geht auf den nächsten Zug."

The Doctor paused, flinching at the thought that this might be his golden goose. The gypsy threatened to shot himself if his daughter was not free and put on a train. The Zigeuner drove a hard bargain.


	2. Chapter 2

**New York, 1956**

The humidity clung to her as she walked through the noisy street in Harlem that day. The sun and the city fumes mixed together to create a heady combination that made her feel faint. She tucked in her elbows as she walked on through the crowded street that was packed with fruit stalls and boxes of canned goods. The stall owners projected their voices like horns, at a frequency that hurt her ears.  
From the apartments above, washed white bed sheets and shirts blew a little on the washing-lines, occasionally blocking the unforgiving glare of the midday sun.

Traders shouted to each other, competing with the roar of the city. The high pitched mournful sound of a saxophone floated through the air from above, adding to the confusion.  
She felt her arm brush against a moist stranger and give an involuntary shiver as she kept her bag close, it was a bad street for pickpockets. She could feel the mist of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip as her strong legs kept a fast pace. She could feel her fair skin burning already. She envied her fellow dark-skinned pedestrians for a moment. They probably didn't get sunburn.

Magda was the only pale face on the street. At a glance she was an all-American blonde-haired and pale skinned woman. But appearances were deceptive. Yes, appearances were certainly deceptive.

She took in a breath, the sweet smell of fruit mingled with the smell of the heat. She needed a new dress for work and she knew a guy who knew a guy who could get her a pretty dress for a few cents. Then she'd meet up with her friend, have a soda, and start work.

...

She watched as her friend stood on the stage, dressed in orange and costume jewellery that sparkled dimly through the haze of smoke. As she sang, her lovely face moved and her expression changed, each one different and more beautiful that the last until you were sucked into a trance, not daring to look away in case you'd miss one look that might bring you to tears, the kind of tears that you cry once in a while if you are alone long enough with a particular work of art in a museum.  
The sultry voice that would put even Marilyn's to shame floated in the air for a few seconds, ending with a final quiet, "Only you..."

Magda looked across the room as her friend bowed to the unappreciative audience. Not a clap was heard as she listened to the chatter rise once again. She wondered if any of the restaurant-goers even noticed that her friend could easily be one of the most beautiful women in New York. But they didn't. Their eyes were coated in a film of ignorance. The singer was her friend Doris. She was black.

Miraculously Magda snapped out of her stupor and quickly turned from the open glass doors that she was peering out of. She stood at her post and waited for the diners outside the coat-room. She wore a uniform with a name-tag that said "Margot". The manager didn't like her name, apparently Margot gave a better impression. She looked down at it. She was just another foreigner who slowly, day-by-day, was being stripped of her undesirable identity and turned into something that was colourless, obedient and vague.

The smoky evening air flew through the doors, blowing the people in. The usual warm fur coats and diamonds were replaced with just more diamonds that sparkled over dresses in loud patterns that screamed over each other for attention. She thought that diamonds were tacky and she hated how their hair was probably as solid as concrete. She was handed hats and gave tickets, smiling like a Russian doll.  
They were colourless, loud and brash. She smiled as she loathed how they stunk of self-importance and spoke like voices on the radio. Fake.  
She watched as they either grumbled about something insignificant or boasted to each another about something equally insignificant.  
She always watched their eyes pause whenever they looked at her, sometimes it was like they saw through her for a second. Like they knew she was a wolf in sheep's clothing. They knew by the oddness of her face, the way her cheeks were not pink and contented, and the way her skin seemed to be stretched a little tighter over her bones that she was not one of them.  
She had seen starvation, cruelty and death. It was etched into her young face like all the other immigrants from her part of the world that had come to America over the years.

With a faultless polite accent that made her grown inwardly, she greeted them and took their belongings. When was the last time she used her real voice? Since she was six she had been pretending to be German. Since the war ended she quickly learned English and pretended to be that instead. A real American gal.

...

It was the early hours before the crowds had gone. The pain of standing on the same spot for hours had spread up her legs and she watched the last customers with loathing as they sat drinking coffee. She was always one of the last to leave but tonight she didn't feel tired.  
In the last few days she had an itch, a restlessness that gave her palpitations late at night. A desire to get up to no good. She drummed her nails on the polished wooden desk, deep in thought. Was tonight the night? She bit back a sly smile as the last stragglers came to collect their hats and jackets. After the fake pleasantries she jumped up and slid over the polished desk in a flash, just as they had turned their backs. With her skirt billowing, she ran down the steps and through the dark maze of empty tables, one hand on her hair so that it wouldn't tumble out of the elaborate pinned style that disguised the fact she had wild thick hair with a mind of its own.  
She burst through the swinging doors and squinted a little in the bright lights of the huge clean metallic kitchen.

The staff were congregated around a table, eating the leftover un-ordered food and waiting for the last dishes to be washed, idly chatting with tired eyes and cigarettes in their hands. She reached over for some cold pasta that was smothered in a delicious sauce that had a fancy name.  
A smooth arm draped over her as she ate greedily–she had been starving for hours. She turned to see Doris, who taking a long drag of a cigarette while listening to the chatter of their fellow workers.  
"You put on a really great show tonight..." Magda tried to swallow her pasta as she continued, "It was beautiful."  
Doris' smile was radiant as she bowed her head a little, patting her smoothly ironed hair before swatting the air like the compliment was a fly.  
"It was nothin'." Her southern accent was smooth and lyrical as she took another drag. "Is your boo comin' to walk you home tonight?"  
Magda replied, suddenly aware of her reflection shining back at her from one of the huge steel pantry doors. The pale lights made her look washed out, like denim worn by labourers. Her face was thin and fatigue was written all over it.  
"Yeah, although I doubt he'll be walking."  
Doris silently laughed and raised an eyebrow. "Nice for some. College boy, isn't he?"  
"Yah." Magda looked up, suddenly guilty. The sous-chef, Felipe looked down, intently looking down at the packet of cigarettes at his hand. It was a known fact that he was shockingly intelligent and hungered for more, but not everyone had the same opportunities in life.

"Evenin' folks." The tall, handsome man came walking in, dressed neatly with hat in hand. Despite greeting everyone in the room, once his eyes found Doris, everyone could've turned into mere clouds of dust at that very moment and he wouldn't have noticed. But you couldn't really blame him.  
She looked back down at her empty plate before deciding to call it a night, guessing that her "boo" was probably waiting for her.  
She felt no excitement or anticipation.

She walked out of the bright kitchen, almost dragging her feet. Another boring guy awaited her with his bashfulness, small talk, small ideas, small plans.  
The huge dining room was dark and the soft lights had mostly been extinguished. She stopped.

What it was that made her stop to look into the far corner? Was it a coincidence? Was it planned?

In the far corner in which a dark figure was situated in the shadows. She stopped, cursing herself for not locking the doors. People could be so inconsiderate when it came to closing hours.  
She took in a breath as she gathered the courage to kindly but firmly tell him that they were closed.  
"Sir, I'm sorry..." She walked towards him, keeping her distance while her fists were balled. "The bar is closed."

He sat, drinking from a crystal tumbler that held amber liquor. Staring ahead. There was immediately something about him that displeased her. People had ignored her before, but she understood how it was their own insecurities and the need for self-importance that drove them to treat her and others like dirt. This man however, looked ahead with the air of a king–no–the Pope or a messenger of God.

She could've fetched Felipe or one of the others who could be far more persuasive than she, but tonight she stood her ground. Every fibre of her being wanted to knock him down a notch.  
He was dressed immaculately, although there was something overly conformist about it, overly bleak. Like he was a millionaire undertaker. She didn't look at his face closely as she stood, almost fearing that she'd see something that wasn't detestable.

Glass still in hand, he sat back a little, as if he was a philosopher who had been rudely interrupted during an enlightenment by the village idiot. Maybe he  _was_  a poet. Either way she knew words couldn't reach him. But she had more than a proverbial trick up her sleeve.  
Before he could set the crystal glass back on the immaculate and untouched linen table cloth, she took both ends and in a single swipe the table was cloth-less, leaving cutlery, glasses and the candelabra untouched. She stood, triumphant with the linen under her arm. Even the candles still flickered on the table. The unwelcome guest sat, a mere glance was her reward. Usually a person would've been taken back. Or at least jumped a little.  
The exhibitionist in her felt a little annoyed.  
"Sir..." Her voice was a little too firm. It showed weakness. She wasn't in control.  
The loiterer rested his hand on his expensive trilby that lay on the table. "...But of course." The face that was much younger than she had anticipated looked up. "Once I finish my drink."  
It lay there. He made no move to pick it up again. The glass glinted boldly in the faint light.

All was silence. Hopefully there was someone left in the kitchen. She hated closing up alone. She had reached the end of her tether. "Allow me to help you with zhat."  
Their eyes met for a second as her American accent slipped a little in her nervousness. She grabbed the nearest folded cloth napkin and in a fluid move, she unravelled it and threw it on the glass before immediately lifting the napkin right off the table, scrunching it in a ball and throwing it onto the table. The glass had completely disappeared.  
She smiled with pride inwardly, she had been determined not to mess it up and humiliate herself. The glass lay safe, concealed.  
"Good-night sir."

...

By the time she had finally walked out into the night, the street was empty except for a single car. This was no second-hand reasonably priced affair, either. This car was an expensive sleek beast in the dark, shining elegantly under the street lights. After a moment, taking it in, she turned again and wondered if her date was coming. She flicked back her hair, feeling rather foolish dithering on the side-walk. She heard the click of a car door and the sound of an expensive shoe. The dark figure emerged in the dim light. She awaited the tired line, " _Need a ride, sweetheart_?"  
While she wasn't interested in the driver, she looked at the car with envy. If she had a weakness, it was speed. Horses, cars and even planes sparked her interest since she had been a small child.

"Waiting for someone?"

She looked out, not looking him in the eye and desperately hoping that someone would come to save her. "Yes." She replied stiffly. Of course, it would belong to  _him_  of all people.  
He looked at her under the brim of his hat. All she saw was the glint of an eye. She wondered if he was going to try to take her to some motel room, thinking she was  _that_ type of girl. They always assumed that if you were a waitress for some reason.

"Where are you from, by the way?"  
A casual interrogation. He could be a detective for all she knew. She juggled internally between continued silence that made her gut churn or an answer that might seem like she was interested or playing hard-to-get.  
"Nowhere." Her reply was blunt as she folded her arms.  
The smooth American took something out of his breast pocket. "So...you're a German, Fräulein?"  
"No." She replied too quickly. Many still had a vendetta against Germans in the city, lots of false accusations. To some, every German was a Jew-hating, strudel eating Nazi.  
She swallowed nervously at the cold, superficial charm of his voice. She had heard voices like that many times before. It was unpleasant to be reminded of it.

A painful flash of memory seared through her involuntarily as she remembered screaming in a soldiers arms, sound of the gunshot ringing in the air. Next thing she knew, a train had taken her to Germany where she was to stay in a strange place where doctors measured every single part of her body at least once a week, fed her well, taught her strange histories, punished those who spoke anything that was not German and made her take an oath to something she didn't understand. Her and others slowly forgot their parents, the younger you were the quicker you forgot. After about six months they took her away again to live with Frau Himmer. But she was still a Romany. She had no nationality.

"Just a regular American then?" The shadow moved a little again, looking down the street as if waiting for her date also. "I bet he drives a good second-hand car, American model of course."  
"Excuse me?"  
He fiddled with something as he spoke. "...I bet he wears this college cardigan, takes you to movies on Friday nights..." He brimmed with sly confidence as he took off his hat. "Does he only kiss you in the dark? Do you go dancing and after a milkshake, he takes you home like a gentleman?"  
She was too embarrassed to speak, and knew she had blown it. Her cover as an American-born-citizen was well and truly blown. Although now she questioned who  _he_  was. She had been expecting that he was an executive in his thirties, but she could hear youth in his voice. Much too young to drive a car like  _that_.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She was tired of hinting that she was didn't appreciate his company. She was going to have to be more explicit.  
He stepped onto the side-walk. She took a step back, assessing his height and weight from the shadow. "Stay away from me." She slowly took off one of her gloves, not taking her eyes off him.  
"Are you happy being a coat-check girl, Margot?"  
No answer.  
"Are you sick of it all?"  
She knew he wasn't talking about being a coat-check girl. What infuriated her most was that he was  _right_. She hated the conformity, the emptiness of life here. Death didn't loom over you every day. Life was for granted. Here in this city, money was something to live  _for,_  instead of needing just enough money to live. This time almost ten years ago she was running through Berlin, dressed like a boy with pocketfuls of American cigarettes. They were the currency. German money was virtually worthless. Each day was a struggle. She would never be able to talk to someone here about how she starved, stole and fought her way out of Russian occupied Berlin as a ten-year-old. She had seen many terrible things. She could never share something like that in a malt shop, talking about starvation over some sickly sweet dessert. To divulge how she had seen what humans were capable of over a hot dog. She was alone in this world.

"Excuse me. I have to go." She turned sharply in the direction of her apartment that was over two miles away. Her legs would ache in bed tonight. But she had a good excuse to get rid of that "boyfriend" now. He was a bore anyway.  
"Am I making you uncomfortable?" He laughed humourlessly as he came up behind her, within a few feet. His charming exterior was suddenly tainted with blatant loathing. "At least let me drive you home Fräu-"  
She turned around before a hand could touch her, grab her and hurt her. She started with a left hook that could've belonged to a sailor and quickly went for the nose, hitting it with a crack against her bare knuckles. "Don't," she watched him as he almost doubled over, his hand tying to stop the rush of scarlet, "call me a  _Fräulein,_ you bastard! _"  
_ Worried that someone would see her embarrassing display of rage, she turned on her heel and walked away quickly, almost at a run. She wiped the back of her hand on her cheap dress, feeling tainted. It had been a long time since she had done something like that. But he was a man. He could deal with it.

But seven seconds later, it was  _she_  who was now doubled over. She couldn't breathe. She stopped as she clawed at her chest, coughing. Something was crushing the life out of her, she continued walking, desperate to get away. It constricted around her, even tighter until she was on her knees right under a street light. Its yellow halo pooled around her as her shaking hands grabbed at the under-wire in her corset. The world went spinning as she looked over her shoulder, eyes watering in panic as darkness slowly covered her like a shroud. Each second dragged out as she fought before succumbing to the inevitable.


	3. Chapter 3

**Germany, 1944**

"Zigeuner! Zigeuner! Zigeuner!"

The world had been violently turned sideways.  
She lay in the mud, the earthy sludge seeped into her dark blonde plaits as she looked up at her opposition. His name, she did not know. His hair glowed auburn in the bright sun as it shone through the dark clouds after the downpour earlier that morning.

The children in various classes had quickly united in a circle, eagerly watching their comrade beat the degenerate who dared to rise up and become one of them. They had watched the films that explained why it was necessary to do such things.  
Their fellow classmate was tall and muscular for his age and was one of the most promising members of Deutsches Jungvolk. He stood tall and watched with superiority as she slowly got up, the children who formed the outer circle had begun to kick her so she'd get up. They chanted the word with all the more poison.  
She stood up. They told her she was weak. But then she was also told that she was too strong. She was a wicked and hardened gypsy who was like a weed in a field of barley. A parasite.

But, she was scared to fight back. She would certainly get lashed by the teacher, then she'd face the wrath of Frau Himmler back at the house. She watched the hulking boy who was probably thinking she was more hurt than she was. A little blood was nothing to her. She had had many fierce fights with her siblings as a child.

When the mud seeped from her thick hair that Frau Himmler had pulled into braids in a way that hurt every inch of scalp, she suddenly realized that now she was dirty she'd get lashed either way. She swiped the dripping dirty water that was oozing down her neck, stopping it before it touched her snowy white collar.  
She watched him coming. Her brother Karl has much faster than this boy ever was. Harder fists too.  
She could tell he was about to spit on her.  
Mud seeped through her own tight fists and as the crowd give a final victorious cry, she flung a handful of filth into his eyes when they least expected it. In that instant she came forward, reaching up for his neatly combed hair–nails dragging through his scalp as she ignored the powerful pummels that he gave her and yanked his head down into her dirty knee with a dull loud smack that made those around her flinch in horror. The small crowd gasped and a shout for help was immediately raised now that the tables had turned and a monster was now in their midst.  
The only pain she felt now was the stinging pain of her knuckles as she dealt blows to the muddy nose, wanting to force her enemy to feel the pain that burned through her heart, every single minute of the day. She was alone in this cruel world.

They had stolen her from her family that day in Poland. From there she was taken to Germany where for six months she and many others were measured, observed, trained and taught. After that, she was taken to live with the frozen-hearted Frau Himmler. A widow who had lost two of her three sons in the war. She had been persuaded to reluctantly adopt her, but Magda's presence was little consolation to her heartache.

* * *

 

**New York, 1956**

She woke up stiffly, rubbing her neck. After the initial wakening, the memories of the night before crashed down on her like a flash-flood and she opened her eyes in panic but her surroundings stilled her inner torment at once. The small living room was silent as amber light streamed in through shabby curtains, the specks of dust that floated in the air turned into gold as they touched the light, giving the room an instant feeling of church-like sanctuary and peace. It was Doris's apartment.  
She got off the chair, still in her clothes from the night before. She had remembered the pool of light that surrounded her as she lay on the ground gasping for air and could still feel her lungs trying to push against the force that was crushing her. And that was it.  
She looked through the curtains, pulling them open so that the bright light burst in.  
"Thank the Lord we found you on the side-walk last night!"  
She looked around to see her friend and now saviour, Doris. While Magda's face would show a sleepless night with dark circles and red eyes in an instant, Doris could go for weeks without a proper nights' rest and still her face would never betray her fatigue. Her dark satin skin was flawless even in the harsh morning light, eyes bright and her usually dark iris's shone golden as she squinted in the sun. Madga looked back, knowing that her own face was likely to be ghostly pale, flawed and puffy.  
She didn't know what to say. The shock was still very real. It had been a long time since she had had a brush with danger. She started to say something but tears inexplicably sprang to her eyes as she bit her lip, waiting until they subsided.  
"Oh, child...you must've just fainted. You should take more care of yourself."  
Despite the fact that they were more-or-less the same age, since they first met Doris had always mothered her. Maybe it was the fact that Doris had came from a big family that she had left behind in the south, or that Magda had been a naive and friendless immigrant with little knowledge of modern American life–she didn't know. But now the friendly hand on her arm was forcing her to purge the emotions she felt. Acts of kindness was the only thing that could ever draw tears from her.

As she was enveloped in a tight hug, her friend patted her head like a mother would her child. Magda tried to speak, biting her lip and quickly regaining control over herself. "I-I didn't faint." She closed her eyes as she focused on keeping her voice from wavering. "There was a man..."  
Doris quickly pulled from the embrace, both hands on her shoulders as she looked intently into Magda's face with shock. "A man? A stranger?" Doris looked at her with eyes full of meaning, glancing down at her dress. A slight tear at the collar and front was suddenly apparent. "He hurt you?"  
Magda looked down at her dress, pulling the tear and feeling the underwear that almost showed through. She could feel the thin metal under-wire. Confusion pushed away the shock for a moment.  
"Magda? Tell me what happened."  
She looked up, knowing that it would be impossible to explain the impossible. Who would believe what happened if even she didn't believe it?  
"No, it wasn't...I don't think so. I don't know."  
"Some damn dirty rotten..." She mumbled in her southern slang as she fixed Magda's tawny hair and shook her head while closing her eyes. "Well, I found you five minutes after I first left..." She looked at Magda sideways, waiting for a reply. There was none. Doris frowned a little, emphatically continuing. "You shouldn't be working jobs like this, you know. You are white," Magda glanced at her. Doris knew her history, but she was telling her like it was. "And you are educated. If I was you, I wouldn't be working as no coat-check girl. I'd make something of myself."  
She looked at her friend with a little guilt. It was true. Magda had been a second-class citizen–in the old country. But in America she had learnt that there was a different second-class citizen. People with dark skin were meant to be separate here. They lived in poorer places, went to schools that weren't as good, jobs the same. She remembered how American soldiers in Berlin would boast about their country as she served them drinks and performed little tricks for them in the smoky basement bars of the ruined city. They had always said words like 'freedom', 'opportunity' and 'happiness' when describing America. A place of equality for all and democracy.  
She finally replied, composed. "I'll think about it."


	4. Chapter 4

**1956**

The music pulsated through the air, beats and wails that conveyed anything from passion to deep sadness travelled through the Lucky Strike amber haze that covered the dancing and drinking crowd that congregated in the jazz club. She liked the place, watching everyone from the poor and clapping jazz musicians in their best clothes to the middle-class beatnik-types who tried their best to pretend they were as dirt-poor and carefree, dressed in carefully ripped sweaters. But despite her cynical observations, even she had to admit that the eclectic cocktail of faces and accents mingled in a way that could only be described as agreeable. In the club everyone could pretend for a while that everything was "cool, man!"

She sat in the back, the shadows concealed her as she watched the crowd laugh, dance and sway to the music. Her legs were crossed at the dark end of the crowded bar, wearing tight black trousers and a thin sweater that she had rolled up at the sleeves in a half-hearted attempt to stay somewhat cool. She observed the scene around her, detached from it like an artist watching their subject matter. Simultaneously she wanted to join in with the dancing and yet she liked being alone with her thoughts. She would've been alone in her room at that very moment if she had not been swayed by Doris to get out of her meagre apartment and her nose out of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. While she agreed with Doris that she did need to get some air once in a while, she also knew it was because Doris wanted to keep an eye on her. She had been doing this for the last two weeks, making sure that Magda was nearby. Tonight in a few moments, Doris would take the stage and perform to a more appreciative audience who would watch her, spellbound.  
Magda took another drink of beer. It had been almost a decade since she took her first curious sip of the stuff and still she was not sure if she liked it. Even now after a long drink she would try not to make her face contort in a little distaste.

She looked up and watched as the band stopped for a break, leaning further back into the uncomfortable stool. The taste of German beer and ironically, the smell of American cigarettes brought her back to Berlin. The cigarettes were unlike the repugnant Russian brands, to ten-year-old Magda they smelt of freedom. They were traded on the thriving black market for almost anything. Even travel papers. She remembered it very well.  
Her foot began to tap on the bars of her stool as a starting beat began to coax her into movement. She was in no way tipsy, and never had been well and truly drunk in her life. But she had found that it was more socially acceptable to pretend to be a little intoxicated when dancing with the reckless abandon that she did. It was one of the things she took purest pleasure in. She would dance like she wanted to, free from the rules, hair free and loose. The so-called "Beatniks" would only gawk as she would suddenly become an exotic dancer, spinning and dancing like she was a Cuban in Havana. She would usually dance barefoot and the crowd would clap and cheer as she would dance with those who were as brave as herself.

...

She collapsed into her dancing partners arms, laughing as the music came to a stop. She had been dancing for about an hour and felt almost sick, she was so hot. Her dancing buddy patted her on the shoulder, half-way between congratulations and comfort as she attempted to breathe evenly. She mutely responded with a thumbs up as she was handed a drink and knocked it back. She glanced up at the stage for a moment to see Doris talking to the band, distracted as they figured out where a band member was or something. Her dance partner flashed her a huge white grin as they said their goodbyes as total strangers amicably before she cut through the dark crowd, desperate for somewhere dark, cool and hidden to recover. Her head spun as she sat down in an empty shoddily made booth. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be sitting down. Even the shyest and most cumbersome were on the floor or tables dancing—courtesy of some Dutch-courage.

She had caught her breath in a few minutes and was now watching with crowd around her with the usual detachment of an outsider. She was either the centre of attention or on the outside looking in. That was just how she was, really.  
The crowd had clamoured to the front as her friend sang in the dim light. She doubted if Marilyn herself could work the stage like Doris could.  
She scanned the crowd lazily and then did a double-take. A man sat alone in the smoke. She froze. His head was turned.

She immediately got up smoothly and slowly like someone with a gun pointed at them. Down the back of the room there was a curtain pulled across a doorway, a crack of light shining through it. A gambling den was the best place to hide from someone dangerous.  
Magda was no stranger to gambling. She guessed it started at around her teenage years in British occupied Berlin. She had been ready to get the first plane out of Berlin and a boat to America but it wasn't that easy. Many wanted to leave and you had to be smart if you wanted one of the precious seats. It was all about making friends with the kinds of people who could choose who made the list.

Magda had her wages in her pocket since she and Doris had both came to the bar straight after finishing work early, having been on the lunch shift. As a woman she already had an advantage over her male counterparts–she didn't let her ego intervene with her playing.

She parted the curtain a little, sliding in. It was late and probably most were drunk enough to play poker with a raccoon let alone a woman.  
There were three men gathered around a table that could fit five, one was hunched over with a head that shone under the light, the other two looked up wearily. The smell of cigar and alcohol gave the room a heavy smell as she sat down on a worn-out chair that was probably comfy once.  
The cigar smoker was first to speak, asking her name as he shuffled cards, starting a new game.  
She mumbled a reply.  
"Well, Maggie," The man that had misheard her name spoke with an Irish accent, "I hope you're not much of a player. I'm hoping tae come home with heavy pockets to the wife. It's hard when you have twelve little mouths to feed..."  
The other, a gruff looking man who had the memories of war written over his face, grunted in a way that substituted a laugh. "That's a pile of damn bullshit, Murphey."  
"Helluva tactic though." Magda was handed a glass of liquor as she spoke, instantly becoming one of the boys.  
The three watched the Irishman called Murphey shuffle and then reshuffle as they drank. He had just started distributing, playing dealer before looking up past Magda's head, in the direction of the door behind her.  
"Lookin' a game, aye?"  
Madga swallowed her drink painfully, forcing it down. At first she had thought it was a massive coincidence, now she knew that she was in full-blown danger. He was following her. It had been along time since she had been so afraid of someone.

He sat down at the round table, almost opposite her at the two O'clock position. Hatless, his shirt and braces were visible as his jacket was hung on the back of his seat. In this setting he looked less like a young morbid millionaire and more like a gangster or professional criminal.  
He sat down, not looking or even glancing at her.  
She watched her cards, the distribution seem to take eternity as her mind raced in a vague panic.  
"Cigarette?" The bald man who had been silent reached into his jacket, pulling out a cigarette tin and lighter.  
"Yes." She replied, taking one and a lighter. Now it really did feel like she was a girl in Berlin again. As a small cloud of smoke escaped her mouth she blinked as the warm smoke rose towards the ceiling. It had been a while since she last smoked.  
She looked down at the hand she given, barely seeing the cards and looking again at the stranger. He had his cards in one hand and something that was probably a chip in the other. He was looking forwards with no particular expression.  
The game started and the pot opened. Magda threw a few bills onto the centre of the table, wondering if she should bolt or stay until Doris came for her. She shifted uncomfortably as she took another drag, thinking how long she could last until she ran out of money.

The game had gone on for about five minutes in silence before Murphey piped up. "We're gettin' a bit quiet here. Come an, we're meant to be having a joke or something!"  
"So we'll forget about playing a good hand?" The older disgruntled American looked over at the Irish man who was grinning goonishly with a small cigar between his teeth.  
"Away outta that," He laughed with teeth barred. "Maggie, go on and tell us a yarn."  
Magda looked up from her cards.  
"Go ahn! I've had a lot of bad hands tonight. Give me a good sad story that'll make me feel better. I'm piss-poor, I work hours for nothin' and I haven't seen my wife in three years. Can you beat it? I'll give you twenty dollars if anyone can beat it."  
Magda put her hand down, glad to postpone the game has she waited for Doris.

**Germany, 1945**

People in the village said they were coming. The Russians. But they weren't sure when. The winter was still harsh and many hoped the Red Army would be slow to advance. Especially since they lived in the country. They would be more interested in Berlin.  
Frau Himmler was a hulking woman. From behind it was only her braided hair and skirt that ever gave any indication at all that she was not a strapping, if a little short, man. She had been the closest thing Magda had to a parent and despite the beatings, constant nagging and how she believed that Magda had cursed her–Magda still believed there was something she could do to make Frau Himmler like her. For Magda knew that she was very sad. Sad because her husband and sons were gone, sad because suddenly the rumour was spreading that the war wasn't going well. But despite this, Magda saw the good in her. Frau Himmler would sometimes grudgingly allow her to play outside in the forest for hours in summer evenings instead of poring over books, or when it was Christmas she woke up to see a pair of knitted socks and orange, being told that "it was only because no one else wanted them!" while they peeled potatoes for dinner that day as she thanked her. Himmler devoted hours to her education, despite her failing eyesight. She taught her how to read and write in English, the purpose being that Magda read to her at night as she dosed like a sleeping bear in the flickering light of the fire. Frau Himmler grunted dangerously each time Magda stumbled over a word. Before long she could read poetry and novels perfectly despite hardly knowing what any of it meant. She liked Dickens the best since there was illustrations through it and she liked Oliver Twist very much.  
Frau Himmler's dead husband "Ferdie" had been a professor in literature before the war. A trunk in the attic hid away many English and American works that Himmler just couldn't part with. He had studied in Cambridge before he came back to Germany as a young man. He had openly been against the Nazi Party but died the year after they came into power, suffering from a heart attack. Frau Himmler was very conflicted when it came to politics. Very conflicted about how she should feel about Magda.

But now the Red Army were coming and people were afraid of their vengeance. Many wanted to leave for Berlin. They were vulnerable with no weapons to defend themselves. Berlin was two days ride on horseback. Spring was coming soon and Frau Himmler seemed to be getting thinner day-by-day with worry. Magda was eight-years old and was still tall thin and gangly despite being fell fed for over almost two years. Frau Himmler always mumbled about how unhealthy she looked, pinching her cheeks constantly to try to get a healthy German ruddiness into her thin face that was already starting to lose its childlike roundness. She tutted and fretted with Magda's wild and impossibly thick lion's mane every morning at dawn, likening her to the ugly duckling while she scrubbed her neck with half-frozen water. But despite all this, all they had was each other.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be finished properly soon...

**Berlin 1948**

Magda looked at herself in the old cracked mirror, lined with bulbs that were all extinguished barr two. Her hair had grown out of the boy cut and was now almost shoulder-length now. She was too old now to pretend to be anything but a girl. She sighed again at her face, finding a spot on the side of her nose while assessing her pale face. She wanted more than anything to be beautiful and glamorous with plucked eyebrows, red lips and hair fixed into a style like Marlene Dietrich. Instead she was thin, ugly, and her body seemed to be changing at an alarming rate. She was both scared and disgusted with it, each time she undressed it seemed her own body was betraying her yet again with a new ugly suprise.

"Hallo?"

Magda had been staring at her nose and ears, certain they were huge and wondering how to hide them with her hair. She spun around to see tonight's entertainment--a man with a talent that brought many to the basement bar.

He laughed as her murky blue lakewater eyes looked away with embarrassment, still sitting at the dressing table while tucking a curly strand behind her ear. He had grown fond of the awkward looking girl who helped him get ready most nights, he found her occasional stutter and funny mannerisms quite endearing, while also admiring her skill of finding almost anything on the thriving black market.

He asked her if the bar was busy, to which she nodded her head. "Best get a jolly move on then!" He tipped an imaginary hat, impersonating an Englishman with a malice that tainted every syllable, transforming the joke into something at was closer to an insult.

Magda smiled apprehensively, knowing that he hated the allied forces. He hated the British for bombing Berlin until it was a city of ruins and dust. They hated the Russians because of their revenge on Berlin. It seemed that the whole world hated them.  
The man called Wolfram got busy with the hot water, it was a blessing that the gas and electric were on now, and waited for the water to boil. Lighting a cigarette on the hob, he moved away from the battered stolen stove, squinting while muttering that the ceiling was barely holding up.  
Magda stood while rocking to and fro on her feet, looking at her hands where dirt was ingrained in every crease and covered in old and new scars. She liked to watch Wolfram, and he kindly let her pretended that she was needed in the process. This was the closest thing to glamour she could experience in a city like this.

As the water came to boiling point she got the towels for him as he began the ritual of shaving. She listened to the sound of the razer being sharpened as she brought over a steaming bowl, watching like a young apprentice as he started shaving his legs with the cut-throat razer while still smoking, occasionally handing something for Magda to hold as he finished the job with a steady hand before wiping the last of the foam off his now smooth legs.

"Soon you will be doing this," He walked over behind an old battered screen that had been salvaged from a grand house, taking a few minutes to button and zip into his costume. "Spending your evenings getting ready for the officers...by the way, did you get those stockings darned?"  
Magda stood as he walked out, transformed from the neck downwards. He winked at her as she handed him another towel to protect the costume from make-up.  
She stood behind him as he sat down, feeling his cheeks for stubble before reaching for a large puff, dipping it into chalk before blending it into his face. "You are even more quiet than usual tonight. What's wrong?"  
He watched her in the mirror, her face that was half hidden in the darkness looked solemn and sad.   
"Nobody will ever love me." With those words she let out an internal sob and a tear before bowing her head in girlish embarrassment. When Wolfram first meet her over a year ago she was a young wild street urchin, scavenging and scuttling through the city like a mouse. She had called herself 'Pieter' and was as convincing a boy as he was a woman. 

With one half of his face pale and blended, Wolfram turned around as the pathetic girl wiped her tears away quickly. He pressed his lips together into a thin line, shifting with a little discomfort. "There, there." He crossed his long chorus girl's legs that wore black net stockings and suspenders. "I'm afraid that wearing lipstick does not make me qualified to help you with ladies troubles..." Magda nodded sheepishly, looking down at the bottom of her ragged dress that she had almost grown out of. "But I will give you this advice," he pointed at the wall in the direction of the bar, "Do not go through this life wanting love. Because men can sense it, and they will use you. Mark my words little Fraulein--this world that we live in is not kind to ladies anymore. You have to think like men do. Always put yourself first. Always." He sighed with guilt as he said it, realising that he was only stating the obvious since he was talking to a child in Berlin. And children of Berlin weren't exactly children--she and others like her had been forced to be child soldiers in the last months of war. 

He paused for a while, turning his back on her while he got back to transforming his face into something that would make the men stop and stare. "I'm sorry. I don't need to remind you of those things..." He licked a thin brush before dipping it in a box of black dust, coating it before lining one eye. "Come over here beside me, I'll show you how to turn heads and break hearts. Just give it a few years..."

* * *

 

**New York 1957**

She had told her story to the small silent audience. It had been brief and had bypassed many gory details that were too graphic for even the ears of grown men. The reason why she spilled everything? She didn't know. But it gave her a good excuse to leave the table and get out while she could. She didn't even want the money. She saw the stranger watching her, head tilted sideways.  
She pushed back her chair and made for the exit.  
"Wait."  
Magda strode on, ignoring the voice behind. She emerged into the dark bar and the noise and life confronted her again. She looked for her friend on stage as she tried to get lost in a crowd.  
"Stop." A hand roughly grabbed an arm, wrapping around her entire limb so she was forced to turn around.  
She pulled from his grasp, trying to yank herself free. "Let go of me." She hissed through gritted teeth with her chin down, eyes almost burning with rage. She looked around for someone- anyone who could see that she was in trouble. But the stranger had roughly pulled her into a hold so that it looked like they were a pair dancing.  
He replied just as sharply, making no attempt to hide his own annoyance. "No, not until you listen." He waited until she turned her head to look properly at him. "Your little story back there was impressive. I thought this was a coincidence, now I'm sure it must be fate."  
"What do you want from me?" She scowled at him as knots continued to twist in her stomach.  
He paused as a cheer for a song behind him rose. "I want to give you a job offer." He took one arm off her before reaching into his breast pocket, pulling out a wad of bills that was so thick it didn't seem real. "This," he held it up between thumb and forefinger, "is only the beginning."

Her eyes flickered between his intense expression and the paper pile he put back in his pocket. She quickly replied that she didn't want anything to do with his job or money. She tired to get away again, pulling away. She told him that he could offer her nothing she would ever want.  
"Even justice?"  
"You're crazy. Let me go, I'm not interested." She looked up to see that it was clear she didn't have a choice from the very beginning. The fact they were even having this conversation was some odd form of pleasantries. "I 'oughta call the cops right now...I don't know what happened the other night or how, but what I do know is that I don't like you." She could almost feel the thin wires of her corset and burning lungs as she said it. She hadn't worn underwear in weeks because of it.  
"I did it because I never thought I would find someone like you who could be willing." Magda made to speak but he interrupted her. "Will you just shut up and listen? I need a thief."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...?


	6. Chapter 6

**1962**

Everything was still that October afternoon, almost like the world itself was watching and decided to accommodate the millions of Americans sitting in their homes-quietly waiting for something that was utterly out of their grasp.  
It was all in their hands. The governments who were at odds with each other.  
The peach coloured afternoon shone with fading beauty as her shadow danced on the cracked pavement that was covered in chalky scrawls and squares for games.  
The concrete city she knew and for so long despised, never looked so beautiful that day. The grey was doused in the warm orange light and some windows shone back the sun with blinding magnified brilliance.  
As she reached the block that she lived on, she looked back with sentimental eyes, the kind of look a man on death row might have as he leaves his prison cell for the last time.  
With the crinkling bag of groceries on one hip, she walked up the steps to the building in which she lived. After a quick struggle with keys and bags, she was up the dark hallway and the narrow stairs that led up to her one bedroom apartment on the third floor. A brief flicker of thought made her think about all of the saving, scrimping and labour of the past eight years. She had been three months away from getting the money for a deposit on a house. A proper house in a neighbourhood of lawns and fences. It was something that would've made her baulk in distaste less than ten years ago. Before she became a mother.

She knocked on her door in the dark hall and in less than a second her son eagerly opened it, obviously waiting for her return. She handed him the groceries, the lactic acid had reduced her arms to limp extremities.  
"Any more news on the radio?" She took off her coat and sat in the threadbare chair that creaked under her slight frame.  
Her daughter Wanda who had been intently watching the sky, turned from the window. "Nope."

She clenched and unclenched her hard red hands that had suffered from years of abuse. The last eight years had passed quickly in a whirl of hard work. And now it seemed that the bombs were going to fall on them. Schools, work places and almost everyone had closed up shop. No one knew how long they might have left-war was a threat that seemed both fictional and horrifyingly real. She had to spend these moments with her children. Her miracles.

Her family that had been killed, the faces that had almost been completely lost in the mists of her mind, now existed on Pietro and Wanda's faces. Everyday, a little look would bring back a forgotten image of a sister or brother. When she'd comb Pietro's hair, she'd see it shine a blackish blue for a second, like her mother or sometimes she'd catch Wanda doing something naughty and see her brother Karl's crooked smile on her face.

They sat beside her now on a little wooden stool and chair arm, watching the radio intently as if it was a television.

As if hearing her thoughts, Pietro looked up at her with dark eyes that seemed to bore into her soul. They were his only feature that did not belong to her, her family or even his father. "Mom?"  
"Yes?" She looked down, telling herself they might only have days before life as they know it end.  
His dark eyes were unblinking. "Bombs are made of metal."  
"Yes they are." She knew where he was going with this already. She pressed her lips together tightly.  
"Then, would Rex be able to stop them?"

She looked down at him, feeling the guilt swirl through her entire body. Rex. Rex had been created as a character, a fable when the bullying first began. She had taken the parts of Erik that could be used to teach them about injustice, individuality, uniqueness. She left out the manipulative, conniving, deceiving person who was incapable of love. The man that her children knew as father was a vague description of a man "that I knew once".

"I don't know..." She looked out the window, watching the sun sink gradually in the sky. "Bombs move pretty fast. And the distance. That would matter." She always felt uncomfortable talking about it, she remembered locking metal objects away when they both were toddlers, the thought that either or both of them might inherit the inhuman ability had always played on her mind, but her kids were normal. She was relieved. The last thing they needed was to be any _more_ different.

The radio was playing some slow jazz on the station she usually listened to. After a minute of that, Pietro's little voice piped up again. "I wonder what he's doing."  
"I'm sure he's halfway across the world, sitting tight like us. Although I'm sure he'd make a great bunker."  
"No..." Again, those eyes watched her levelly as he continued, "My Dad."  
"I thought you said that you didn't want to know..."

She remembered that day. A few years ago the kids at school must've had heard their parents gossiping about her husband or rather, lack of one. It was a stigma she bore with no complaint but she remembered how the rage that was usually dormant surged when she held her hurt and confused son. They had taunted them although it was Wanda who had hit out of anger. The kid had lost a tooth apparently. She wasn't surprised.  
She remembered sitting that day in the elementary school office. She remembered the rubber plants and the smell of the vice-principal's hair oil and how his glasses glinted in the light when he coolly said, "I didn't realize your son's name was actually Pietro, Mrs..."  
She paused for a second. She had gone by many names throughout her life. The surname had nothing to do with her family. She was a "displaced" child when she came to America.  
"Maximoff."  
It came out with difficulty, the mild stutter that she suffered as a child when she was forced to speak German. The punishment for such an impediment was to sing the national anthem until she stuttered no more.

"Hm." The Vice-Principal had a military air as he took out the file. With a few violent flicks, birth certificates were procured. She knew that had no father had been labelled on them. The twins were illegitimate and she was an affront to the concept of family. She looked at him with dark steely blue eyes, daring him to say anything. She continued. "Peter is what everyone calls him. He likes it better."  
He returned a cold smile. "Nothing wrong with wanting to fit in. Plenty of people change their names to look better on job applications."  
The way he said it made her want to reach across the desk to grab that 1940's tie and pull it tight enough to choke his fat neck. It had been a long time since she had punched anyone. She remembered those wild days.

When she got home that afternoon, she told Pietro and a grumpy Wanda that the kids in school were wrong. Pietro sat on her knee while Wanda sat on the window ledge. She told it like a story. "Long ago, when I was your age, a group of people called Nazi's thought they were better than certain other people. They told many lies and people believed them. They then wanted to...get rid of the people they didn't like. Many people including my family and your father's family were..." The atrocities flashed through her mind, she chose her words carefully. "But we survived it. As teenagers we came here, to America. We met one night and became friends and then when I got you two, I knew that your father carried too much sadness and pain in his heart, I knew that he would never love you like you deserved. The morning he left for Europe, I stayed here."  
"You never saw him again?"  
"No."  
She knew both were too young to comprehend death and genocide, but Pietro twiddled with his thumbs, while Wanda's face screwed up into a scowl of childish pain. "I don't wanna know his name. If he didn't love us, I don't care about him." She went back to staring out of the glass, the light shining on her reddish-brown hair that was wild and thick like her own. 

She should've said something more that day, but why? The story bent the truth so much, it could barely hold together.

"We have each other. And that's what counts." She had looked at Pietro's face with a smile. "If things had been different, if the world was a fair and good place, we would be sitting here together, I would stay home, cooking for you all and making homemade..." She paused to think what the pretty, bland housewives in television commercials made with their state-of-the-art kitchens.  
Pietro laughed at the image of his mother being normal housewife and the vague idea of a man sitting at the table with a grin on his face like the commercials on television.  
They never mentioned him again after that day.

But now here he was. Her son had questions and she was going to have to be accountable for them.  
But then again, the world as they knew it could end at any moment


	7. Chapter 7

**1957**

"How did you make that glass disappear?"

They were now sitting facing each other, she had not expected the question to sound as serious as it did. She looked down and traced the wood grain with a finger. "A magician never tells their secrets you know..."

"Make an exception."

"You are very rude." She continued to look down at the table, looking at the markings that someone had etched with a pen-knife. She didn't like how she felt compelled to do what he asked, so she resisted as long as she could. "It takes a lot of practice, planning and slight of hand, if you must know." She looked away, adding, "...And a good teacher."

He watched her, exhaling in what almost seemed like dissatisfaction at her answer. "I see."

A voice that was softly husky spoke into the poor microphone that made it sound more muffled. "We only got one more song for you tonight..." The last few people left standing on the floor swaying side-to-side murmured something between a hoot or a hiss. "I dedicate this one t' little Maggie." Doris smiled as the band took the cue to start.

Magda smiled as she waited for the song that was usually dedicated to her, clapping for a few seconds as she forgot about arguing with the man who was apparently called Erik, and listened to her friend sing.

Erik turned around in his chair, looking towards the stage. He paused as he saw the singer onstage. His mouth became slightly ajar before quietly blurting that she looked like Marilyn Monroe, before blinking quickly as if he had said something that he had not meant to. He looked back to see a sunny faced girl who was smiling at him.

"She does, doesn't she?" She folded her arms on the table, tilting her head sideways as she smiled at her friend through the smoke that made her eyes feel a little dry and sore.

* * *

 

 _Der Untergrund_ was not a nice place. It smelled a little and brought mostly the people who had questionable taste for both entertainment and alcohol to its battered doors. For many allied officers the seediness of the bar was what gave it a rather scandalous allure. They had come for the sort of fun that would amuse and moderately shock them for a few dark hours.

The bar was near Berlin's destroyed heart, in the Russian district. Tentions where still high between America and Britain with the Russians particularly. Many in the Russian district really wondered sometimes what the difference was between Communism and Fascism. The Russian propaganda that shouted out from what was Radio Berlin didn't seem much different than the Nazi propaganda.

A moderately talented band played on battered instruments, as a small crowd of American officers came in, cracking gum and jokes before taking a seat with some anticipation. The band of three did a few old American jazz-age songs before retreating off the makeshift stage that barely lived up to the name.

One of the American's who sat down looked a little apprehensive, eyeing the drunken Russians who were laughing and joking with some firearms laid casually on the table. The Private cleared his throat as he tried not to seem nervous in the odd place. He didn't know any German and wondered why his fellow officers suggested the place with so much winking and nudging.

The lights went down and a few whistles went up. The curtains parted slowly and an old piano started up with gusto from somewhere behind the stage. The young man's eyes widened as a figure stood on the stage. If he had been anywhere else he would've questioned if it really was Marlene who was stood there in heels and stockings. The impersonator then proceeded to sing and then he was captivated even though it was all in German. He didn't take his eyes off her.

Magda watched Wolfram behind the stage, watching the performance. He sang a few songs in his low sultry voice, make-up thick and glistening. She didn't have to join the audience to know he was watching them through thick spiked lashes with utter contempt. When he stepped down and wove through the scattered mis-matched tables that were barely standing, she could see his blonde wig and top hat perched on his head as he laid across their laps, the unwittingly foolish officers didn't guess this vixen was in fact a man.

Magda had grown-up recently, aware that she was losing time to get out of the old country and into America. She watched Wolfram take a cigarette from a Russian, taking a drag before leaning closer then blowing it into someone else's face.

She looked down at her own outfit that had been scavenged together, cut and sewn into something that resembled a showgirl outfit. She felt terribly naked and self-conscious and her fishnet-stockinged knees were almost knocking in fear. She wasn't like Wolfram, she had more fear than anger for the men. Wolfram had finally made it back to Berlin after being a POW in France. He didn't see Berlin fall in the last days of war. She had been starving when she arrived, bundled in coats and wearing clothes that used to belong to Frau Himmler's sons. She was sure to die but then rumour was that those fighting- even the youngest- got extra rations. She had sawed her hair off with her sharpened pen-knife and in a blur she was in a massive uniform, being told how to blow up tanks. She remembered dead soldiers in the streets even before the Red Army arrived, shot for being 'traitors' and hanging from bridges to worn others about the dangers of retreating.

She could hear the clapping and laughing coming from the bar. She stood rooted to the spot.

The Red Army came to Berlin, rumbling in their tanks and Berlin fought, steet-by-street. Magda remembered vividly a boy of fourteen manning a machine gun at the end of his street, wearing a uniform that had the SS badges torn off. She remembered prying a gun from a cold dead hand, taking it for herself.

She heard her stage name.

She remembered standing there in the silent ruins that was once a street. She had seen it from far away and although there was no reason for bread to be laying abandoned in the rubble, she had crept towards it, ready for it to turn out to be a figment of imagination. The dawn had barely risen and she pounced on the bread like the beggar she was, feeling it in her hands and peering around the part of a crumbled wall to make sure it was safe to stuff it all in her mouth then and there.

She swallowed and looked down as her magician's table.

She gripped the bread as a figure lay still on the ground. She looked around in fear for herself before her eyes involuntarily glanced again in horror. Violated limbs were pale and splayed apart, peaking through the bricks. The skirt and coat lay covering the upper half like an unholy veil. One shoe had fallen off the frozen foot.

She stood on the stage as the lights went up, the mask of make-up felt good on her face as she looked out into the dark audience through heavy eyelashes, smiling like a doll as she mutely held up a scarf before swirling it in the air, trying to keep the expression while making packets of cigarettes appear in their dozens out of thin air, hands shaking


	8. Chapter 9

**1966**

It was Thanksgiving. She never celebrated the holiday before Bob, but now that he was in their lives, it was only right to follow tradition. Even if that tradition was to cook the most dry and tasteless type of poultry ever to exist. She had been basting for hours and now vegetables, sauces and trimmings had to be cooked at the same time. The pressure was getting to her.  
"Bob?" Her voice raised over that damned television set that was showing some sport that apparently was important. She tried to pat her hair back into the beehive shape it was currently sprayed in. "I need help in here!"

The rain pelted down on the quiet suburbia. She was living the dream. A house, family, a soon-to-be husband, a managerial position, and all the mod-cons that the glossy magazines told her she needed.

She was knelled over the turkey and with effort she slowly got up, her bump was now a boulder that made her rather useless. This baby was making itself quite comfortable apparently. As she stood up with difficulty and a little pain, it seemed like the whole world was against her. She took a sharp intake of breath as the "good wife" persona was now well and truly off. A fiery scowl lit her face. Bob hadn't been much help lately. Grouchy and withdrawn.  
She wondered why this country liked holidays so much. It never failed to bring out the worst in people.

"Mom?"

She turned from the direction of the living room and towards the other door into the kitchen. He stood, face pale and grey. His dark eyes stared out, looking almost black. He barely slept these days. He said that he couldn't.  
"P-" the rant that was in her lungs vanished when she looked at him, wishing with all her heart that she was suffering his pain for him. "You should be in bed!"  
The dinner was abandoned as she went over to him immediately, bringing his shaved head to her chest as she put her arms around him. Her son was alive.

She remembered those two days that he was in a coma. She didn't leave the hospital. Couldn't. Pietro was more than just a son just like Wanda was her daughter. The were the only beings since her family died that returned her love when she gave it to them. To love and to be loved back.  
That was why she didn't agree to let her son be used for research. A variety of people in uniforms had pleaded with her and told her that it was for his own good. He would get the best education. It was just observational. They had offered her an extortionate amount of money.

She had refused.  
They didn't tell her why her poor, comatose son was so interesting. She didn't trust them.  
She remembered when German soldiers came to take "pure Gypsy" blood from the camps. Some were taken away for "analysis". She never trusted hospitals or doctors since.

She could feel him shaking. She stroked his head while asking what was wrong. He mumbled something, eyes closed shut, like he was afraid something was going to happen again. He cleared his throat.  
"The world...stopped again." He hugged her closer, like the world was going to collapse. "I thought I was going to be stuck there forever. I couldn't  _move,_  Mom."  
"I know, I know..." She stroked his shaven head, noticing how the short hair shone pale white in the dull light of the kitchen. While he was in the coma most of his hair had fallen out. Even his eyebrows. She couldn't wait for it to grow back, with him being so frail it reminded her of the dark days of her past.

A noise from the doorway made them both turn to see Bob. Empty beer in hand, he looked at the two with a mixture of guilt and suspicion.  
Bob had wanted her to sign the papers, handing Peter over to strangers. She wondered if she resented her for that. The money those people had offered could've given them a better standard of living. Better as in flashy.

"Have you decided to help with the dinner?" She smiled slightly with her arm still around her son. Bob glanced from one to the other before opening the refrigerator, his dark red hair was all that was seen as he rooted around for another beer.  
"You're joking, right?" He held the cold beer in his hand, his large hand opening it with a sharp hiss. Everything about him was square and clean-cut. American as apple-pie, he was an ex-semi-professional footballer turned taxi-driver.  
Her smile dropped slightly, trying to keep it light-hearted. "Why not? It's just stirring a few pots while I finish this blasted turkey!"  
"This," He pointed in the general direction on the oven, "is for the women. Give me a call when you need me to carve."  
She watched him leave the room with no expression. "Fine." She looked down at her son, in a few years he would be her height, maybe taller. The rain continued to stream down the windows. She sighed, a lopsided smile pulled at her slowly ageing face. "Looks like it's just you and me..." She refused to feel belittled as she held her head up higher. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

The world had stopped again.  
He couldn't tell if his heart had stopped beating or was going so fast it was humming.  
His mouth was open, waiting for a breath let alone sound.  
He looked around, the air was like soup as he pushed against it. Wanda's bed was empty and he was filled with apprehension, wondering where she was.

He had been in bed when he first heard shouting from the kitchen. Then a smash. He knew it was about him. It made his heart sink with guilt but he said nothing, only wishing he could fix it, whatever it was that had made him like this.

Bob had been okay at first. He knew plenty of kids in movies and books who hated step-parents but since he never had a father in the first place, it's hard to miss what you've never had.  
Bob had come into their life a few years ago, a guy who brought flowers and records and took her out on dates. He didn't know a lot about him apart from the fact that he was divorced, was the youngest of four boys, his three older brothers all died in the war, and he was a Yankees fan.  
Then Bob moved in. Sometimes he wondered if it was because his mom wanted to appear normal. When they moved the neighborhood had been extremely curious, guessing if his mom was a widow, divorced or separated. Usually single mothers lived in the city.  
Even now the place gave him the creeps sometimes. He felt that at any moment a mob like in those black and white movies would surround the house, evicting them because they don't cut the grass on a Saturday or something. Bob was their piece of normality. Someone who lived, spoke, breathed normal. His mom went along with it mostly, although sometimes she'd glance at them both, with a smile that made a dimple on the right side of her face. It was like a secret message between the Maximoff clan, like the three knew something Bob didn't.

But tonight Peter told himself to 'man-up' like Wanda would nag at him when he didn't want to do something. All was silent and he concentrated hard on breathing before slowly standing up, dressed in his pajamas. Like trying to run in a dream, he pushed against gravity that dragged him down, making slow progess in slow motion through the bedroom door and down the long hall towards the crack of light at the end. He was still almost breathless and in about ten minutes he had gotten a distance of about twenty feet.

At the kitchen door Wanda crouched frozen and wide eyed. He slowly bent down but she did not see him. He looked though the crack to see the lit kitchen and two statutes in battle. They stood frozen in time, posed like action-figures. His mother was against the wall, one hand ready to block a blow, the other on her large bump. Her teeth were barred as she looked up with hatred through the dyed-brown hair that had fallen out of place and some strands floated in mid-air as she moved very slowly.

Peter looked over at Bob. His muscular arm was pulled back and ready to aim. His red hair glowed under the bright kitchen light. He looked down at Wanda again who didn't seem to notice him, he bent down for some assurance that this was really happening. He watched her face, coming close. Her blue eyes were coated in a film of water, sparkling and shining very slowly in the light. Her brown hair shone auburn as the light hit it. He watched her slowly open her mouth, small sharp teeth showing as she looked like she was yelling but all he heard were slow rumbling noises all around. Wanda slowly outstretched her hand and suddenly a flash of brilliant light shone like a slow setting sun.

* * *

Wanda let out a scream as Bob pulled back his fist and her mom reached up, prepared to block it with a thin arm, eyes suddenly dangerous. But Mom was really only looking after the baby. Rage, fear and desperation made her head spin as she immediately pulled back the door and watched Bob swing his arm down in a pummel. She wanted him to stop, to die.

Peter watched as the world got faster, like it was watching a television show that he had no part in. Wanda stood up, the sounds where getting higher, more normal. The twins watched the scene unfold with fear. Flames reflected in their wide terrified eyes.

Wanda had her arm outstretched, feeling electricity through her veins as she saw nothing but fire consume the object of her hatred, protecting her mother.


	9. Chapter 10

**1968**

She sat in the kitchen, the early light of Spring floated in through the kitchen as she cut up the broccoli and chicken into tiny pieces, ignoring the howling of a guitar that was drifting from the basement cranked up far too loud. Apparently "but it's  _Hendrix!_ " was a valid excuse when she had shouted for him to turn it down.  
The toddler sat, fidgeting and letting out creaking groans of boredom and frustration while ignoring the spoon that was slowly making its way to her mouth.  
Tired and bored herself, Magda knew of only one way to stop her grumbling before it escalated into a full-scale explosion of tears and tantrums.  
"Laurie! Look at Mommy!" She had put down the bowl and spoon and now had her hands palms up and empty like someone was pointing a gun at her. With an exaggerated expression she reached behind the toddler's ear and seemingly pulled out a spoon, gasping in mock-amazement.  
The toddler sat, distracted but not impressed enough to laugh and clap the way Peter used to. She would have to dust off something a bit more impressive. She whipped out a clean ironed cotton handkerchief that she usually carried around in her back pocket in case she needed to clean toddler snot and dribble, shaking it out and covering the bowl.  
"Look Laurie!" She slowly lifted the edges of the handkerchief and lo and behold, the bowl appeared to be hovering underneath the white cotton. Little Laurie sat taking it in before smiling a little, chewing on her finger. She gurgled a laugh as the handkerchief seemingly rose into the air, higher and higher off the table before it levitated down again. Magda, still holding the white corners watched her daughter, feeling a little less tired and wretched. "Okay, will I make the bowl appear again?"  
Two tiny hands reached out grabbing for the cloth, groaning and making a sentence that resembled "I want to".  
"By all means..." She watched as she grabbed the cloth with a small pudgy fist. The bowl that had been clearly sitting under the cloth less that a second ago had vanished as the toddler whipped it off. She looked at Laurie before looking around her, stumped.  
A squeal of laughter from the child was heard as Peter appeared, bowl in hand and looking rather pleased with himself. "Your magic tricks still suck Mom. Even  _she_  isn't buying it."  
She walked over to snatch the dinner from his hand. "I remember that when you were her age you loved them. You could've watched me for hours as a kid!"  
He rolled his eyes, barely a teenager and yet he was already moody as anything. "Whatever. I'm going to the arcade."  
She put a hand on her hip, exasperated. "Is there nowhere else in town you can go?"  
"Uh, no. This place sucks. I wish we never moved from the city." He was just about to turn but his mother grabbed him. She had to hold him down whenever she tried to get a few words in edgeways. He was a constant reminder of herself at that age.  
"Promise me you won't get in trouble Peter. I know that when I was your age I thought I knew everything and I..."  
He rolled his eyes, cutting her off. "O-okay Mom. You stole apples and pocket-watches. I get it. You had it hard. Now can I go?"  
She shook her head, thinking how she was at that age. There was nothing to say. "Wait, Pietro." He stopped, dark eyes watching her from under the baseball cap he always wore. "Here's five dollars. Go and have fun. Make some friends."  
He looked at her, taking the money and looking at her incredulously. He wasn't in the habit of having many friends. It was something that made her a little sad and guilty. "Maybe take a girl to the cinema?" She winked at him as he mumbled something and bashfully left before his embarrassing mother could see him squirm uncomfortably.

"Petee!" She turned to see an annoyed Laurie now struggling in the chair she has almost grown out of, throwing the spoon across the floor while being outraged that her sibling had not taken her too. She kicked her little limbs out and let out a yell.  
Magda sighed as she looked down at the dinner which by now was cold. She sighed as she let the imp out of the straps to charge around while she re-heated their dinner, counting the hours before bed-time.

* * *

 

 


	10. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll soon get to the good bits...Promise.

**1956**

There was something a little less sticky and heavy about the New York air that day. Something more optimistic filled her as she sat on the park bench, legs crossed—a bad habit—while looking up at the pleasant sky through the canopy of oak leaves that swayed in one hundred shades of green above her.  
She didn't have to go to work that day. She had quit.  
She felt free as a bird. No shackles. No rotas. No pay-checks.

She looked out at the nearby pond that shone like polished silver, eyeing maids in their cotton dresses wearily watch little round-faced children bend down with chubby cherub limbs, trying to set various little yachts and toy boats on the mirror surface.

The book she had brought to read lay untouched beside her as she continued to watch people, observing them sitting or walking by and occasionally one or two might spark her interest. Like a man in blue jeans and white t-shirt trying to emulate James Dean or an old couple walking side-by-side, trying to get their false teeth around their ice-creams while grumbling about the weather, their joints or youths.  
She smiled to herself as she took a breath of moderately fresh air. The sound of a mounted police horse whinnying and the bright hot sunshine gave her a rare happy vivid memory. In the summers of her youth, the horse fairs and the crisp mountain air came back to her. She doubted that anyone could ever have happier memories. One stood out in particular.

_She had wrangled it from her father, the soft leather reins that belonged to a horse that towered over her. The horse was bought the day before, a chestnut mare with one white sock. It was beautiful. She had to ride it. It was meant to be very fast, her eldest brother had took it for a spin before the transaction. She had felt extremely envious of him when he went around, showing off his superb horsemanship. Now she was going to find out for herself.  
Her father looked down at his fourth child that day, he didn't need to say that if she was caught doing anything silly she would be getting the strap across her legs. He only told her to take it to some nice grass and fresh water up in the nearby hills.  
She could only hope she looked as angelic and innocent as she thought she did with her wild fuzzy blonde curls that rolled down her back, murky eyes shining a transparent blue-green that were framed with long pale lashes that glowed in the sun.  
She tried to walk slowly from the little group of caravans that were resting peacefully in the magnificent Austrian countryside. She picked a few flowers as she went, singing old songs and looking behind every now and then, glad to be alone for a while.  
The mares breathing and noises calmed her as she tried to lead it away amongst the trees out of sight. If she was risking the pain of a belt slapped across the backs of her legs, it would have to be worth it.  
She had found a nearby tree stomp and after ten minutes of clambering she was finally up, _ _apprehensive about how far she was from the ground but knowing that it was far too late to turn back now. She motioned the horse forward, commanding it in her own language._

A shadow lingered by her feet, dragging her back suddenly into the present. She had been staring at the ground for goodness knows how long, deep in the memory. She moved only her eyes, looking sideways at him before looking back out at the shimmering pond.  
"Hello." She could feel the wind blow her hair a little out of place as she said it. A strand of wavy hair caught in her lashes and she sighed inwardly and cursed it as she paused before reaching up and brushing it back into place.  
She really wondered how he could look so cool on a day like this, his face wasn't red and bothered—not even a sheen of perspiration on his brow. He was wearing a slightly lighter colour of suit though. Maybe expensive clothes were breezier. She didn't know.

  
She tried not to squint her eyes unattractively as she looked up at him, still silent as the grave. "Did you really have choose meeting in the park at midday?" She reached for her hat, not sure if she wanted to put it on again. "Inside a restaurant would be cooler."  
"I prefer it outdoors." He answered and she was quite taken back. He no longer sounded American. He sounded like those in Berlin she had known. The ones who had lived in the British district and been in a lot of contact with them picked up the accent when they had to speak English. Magda herself knew few English troops. Only Americans.  
"Fine." She decided not to question him, partly because she was too tired in the heat and not really that interested.

They walked through the vast park, two sombre ghosts. His presence had already killed the optimistic freedom that had been very pleasant before his appearance. She swallowed dryly as she watched pigeons crowd around raining dry crumbs in the shade of the trees on the concrete path. The heat was making her tired and exhausted as her eyes fixed on one single pigeon in the grey crowd that was pure white among the throng of grey.

* * *

 

She had screamed involuntarily, it sounded like one an over-zealous housewife would make if her husband told her he had gotten a promotion. But she wasn't the only one in the park who was exclaiming something.  
Where two public fountains had been standing, one was now a brand-new water feature that spurted a torrent of water into the sky, the hot dry ground hissed as the cool water spread over it.  
She was rooted to the ground, breathing heavily. Rationality was telling her that there was some trick to what just happened. There was  _always_  a trick involved when the impossible happened. She of all people knew that. It had happened so fast too. They had been just standing there...

They had been walking in silence for ten minutes, following the concrete path that sliced through the warm parched grass. Both avoided the usual niceties that most cheerful couples would do as they walked together, such as smiling and tipping hats to friends and old people. It had been perfectly uneventful until she saw something up ahead. She held her breath wanting to look at his expression but she didn't want him to see her take a glance. There were drinking fountains up ahead. And she could see the lines of parched people and children. Segregated.  
She wondered what he was thinking. Was it bringing back memories? He was a Jew, wasn't he? Would he say anything?

She couldn't help but stare as they approached the offending fountains. A "Whites Only" sign and "Colored" were apparent on the fire-hydrant-like pillars that looked like they had erupted like some thick metallic plants from the ground. The coloured post was less grand as someone bent down to try to sip water from the dribbling tap, taking a barely a mouthful of before moving on to let whoever was next in line take a pitiful drink.  
One white person stood drinking at their own fountain, glancing at the line and guiltily slurping at the steady thick stream of water before rushing from the embarrassing situation, using his hat as a fan to cool his red moustached face. Most whites did the same thing. But no one said anything. It was just how it was.  
She took a last look of disdain at the fountains as she walked for a few seconds and then she stopped, realising that she was suddenly walking on her own. He had stopped. They were a good twenty feet from the drinking fountains, out of earshot on the quiet path. He stood with his hand in his pockets. His eyes were slits in the sun. He was looking at her with the same disdain as she had given the fountains moments ago.

"Do you think this is right?" He spoke and she could barely hear him but they were words that she was waiting to hear.  
She paused before replying indignantly. "Of course not."  
His eyes almost lit up as if that was the answer he wanted to hear. "Really? I don't believe you." His hands stayed in his light grey trousers. "Why aren't you doing something about it then?"  
"What do you mean, 'Do something about it'? It's the law,"  
"And that should stop you doing something about it?" He interrupted.  
She looked away with a mixture of guilt and frustration. Again, she wanted to leave immediately. She asked herself again why she was in his company in the first place. She had to admit to herself that her situation was rather self-inflicted. She knew that she was to blame for allowing herself to be dragged into this.

He pushed on at her, "What. Is. Stopping. You?"  
She heard a squeak come from somewhere. Must be a gate or something.  
He continued. "You think that disagreeing with something is enough. But you do nothing. People like you are the reason that there are  _two_  fountains instead of one."

It had came unexpectedly. The disagreement and harsh judgement was forgotten as a shot of clear water erupted from the ground, cutting though the moderately quiet park, the noise had sounded with an extremely loud pop and initially everyone flinched with the fright. But as the water sprayed the thankful and laughing line of people, children rushed towards it, laughing in the sun and forgetting about how tired it had made them feel.  
The bubbling and the happy screeches made all the anger leave her at that moment. How could she stay mad?

* * *

She narrowed her eyes as they sat outside a restaurant, waiting for a waiter. She looked around in case anyone was in earshot, then remembered that Erik was probably fishing for trouble. He seemed to invite it wherever he went.  
"Okay," She looked down at the menu, making a quick decision about how much food she would get in proportion to how little she could spend, "You're telling me that violence is the only way..." She made a little faux-laugh at what he had just said although she felt more disturbed about it in her heart. She shook her head as hands laid the table in front of them.  
He ordered salmon and the wine. She ordered steak. The waiter left.  
"I'm not naive you know," She toyed with the napkin on the table, watching him as he undid a shirt sleeve button. "But I always ask myself how history will remember them. If you are non-violent and your opposition  _are_ , you will be remembered forever in history as being in the right. Eventually you will have the last laugh."  
"That's a darling little speech," She crumpled her napkin, scowling, "but you're forgetting that it's the victors who get to write histories. Look what happens in war...one side wins. One side writes their version of events. They will be always in the right."  
"That's a depressing thought, when you say it like that. Although it's ironic that  _you_  should have such a disaffected view on right and wrong."  
He looked at her dangerously, itching the inside of his arm for a moment before replying. "Forgive me for expressing my views. I was under the impression that this was a free country."  
"It is."  
"Unless you're a red. A Commie."  
Magda looked around again. These days there was a paranoia that communists were all over the place, ready to pounce at any time. She knew America didn't have the Gestapo or anything like it, but she always imagined it. Old fears from her childhood still ran deep in her conscience. People who went after you when you didn't do what you were told. She cleared her throat, wishing to change the subject. It was as Erik was buttoning his white shirt sleeve again she saw it. A mark.  _The_  mark. Where the dark ink stained the skin red scratched skin, the heat had irritated it and made the numbers raised and inflamed. It looked itchy as hell.  
Whatever she was about to say now lay forgotten on her lips.

Finally, the wine came to their table.

She thanked the waiter as Erik said nothing. She always said it too much out of habit. That and sorry. But she needed to talk business.

  
"I'm a little uncomfortable that you are taking so long to tell be what I'm actually going to do for you..." She shifted in her seat, still hot and bothered despite being in the shade. "I hope you're not trying to get me drunk before you ask." At that, she took a few delicate gulps.  _Bon chance._  She thought, letting the wine tingle unpleasantly in her mouth before swallowing.  
"I think you need the full story before I tell you."  
She felt her stomach rumble silently, hunger didn't help her irritation. "Then tell me."  
He sighed. "After bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—you know it?" She shot him a look through her lashes. Did he think her an idiot? "They—America—were already starting to prepare for war with the Soviets. Atomic, chemical, and biological...you name it." He paused as a few people passed close by. "To prepare for this, they needed scientists. Leaders of their fields. America needed _Nazi_  scientists."  
She watched him, absorbing the information while half-losing herself in his gaze. "I see."  
He toyed with a silver salad fork between his fingers. "They called it 'Operation Paperclip'. Intelligence had made a list of the people they wanted for themselves rather than the Soviets getting them."  
"So, what's it to you that America took in a few rocket scientists after the war?" She glanced at the silver fork again, he had bent it over on itself.  
"I'm looking for one in particular. I've been tracking him down for years. You have no idea what I've done to even get this information."  
"Then I'll let you keep that one to yourself...ah, look. The food is here already."  
"There is people in this city who know who was on that list. One man, he lives with his wife and two children—he needs a secretary—they live..."

Magda made the usual sounds of a famished customer and said her thanks to the deeply tanned waiter who set down the plates on the table. The salad looked delightfully cool, the steak was charred on the outside and her knife cut through it to reveal beautiful rare meat in the centre. She didn't think to much about Erik at that moment, absorbed in her own world of taste. She piled each forkful into the perfect ratios of veg and meat. Sweet cherry tomatoes exploded in her mouth along with shavings of fresh beetroot and crisp lettuce that had been covered with lemon-juice dew. Reluctantly after her first ten fast but polite mouthfuls, she slowed down to the picky pace that everyone around her was doing. Alone, she was never polite when eating, she just remembered starvation too much.

  
"I can't type." She sawed the next piece of steak slowly, regretting she didn't order appetisers. "And I don't know shorthand either."  
He looked at her, as if wondering why she was questioning such a minor flaw in his plan. "I hope it won't take that longer than a few days to get the information."  
"How do I do that? Beat it out of him? Ask him when I bring him his morning coffee?"  
"I'm relying on you to be creative. It's what I'm paying you for."  
She chewed on the steak then drunk a glass of water. Thinking that she should've ordered red wine for herself. "How much?"  
"Whatever you want. Within reason."  
"So..." She thought of a typically insane amount. "A million dollars."  
"Fine," he replied not batting an eyelid, "although from experience, I'd advise you to have some kind of plan for storing and moving it."  
She frowned, not wanting to take him seriously. "You sound like money just grows on trees."  
"For me," he piled food on the fork he had straightened out, "it doesn't have to."  
She pursed her lips. Everything about him was impossible. Even now it didn't seem real. He was just one big illusion. He would turn around at any moment and say "ta-dah!" and another trick would be revealed to be nothing but an illusion. She only wished she was terrified of his ability. She wished she could run away screaming blue murder, horrified at his inhuman ability. But tricks, smoke and mirrors were all she knew. Her father had made things appear and disappear before her very eyes. What's stopping someone else bending metal?  
"I feel as if I'm going into this blindfolded. There's something you're not telling me."  
He was looking at his watch. "Like what?"  
"I don't know. But I just don't trust you."  
He smiled like it was a compliment. The silence seemed to drown out the traffic as his gaze had pulled her into a world where only they existed. "Let's go for a drive."  
"After dessert maybe." She tried not to glaze over as she pulled her eyes up to the blue summer sky, slightly hazy with the polluted air. "In the Maserati?" She tried to sound as casual as possible as she said it, but the fact she had noted and remembered the Italian car made it unconvincing. It cost ten-thousand dollars. It made a brand-new Cadillac seem relatively cheap.

"It's not as fastest, but handles well. The best, actually."  
"Hmm." She drunk the last of her water. "And this is supposed to make me trust you?"  
"...Or maybe to sweeten the deal."  
She rolled her eyes, trying to look like she'd never dream of driving such a car. "Oh really? You're going to allow me behind the wheel?"  
He threw a handful of bills on the table, discarding them like useless receipts. His answer was simple and straightforward. "Yes."

 


	11. Chapter 11

Her time had come.  
Her fingers finished off typing a letter, palm permanently clammy with nervousness. She coughed a little before looking around carefully. It was her first day on the job and she had been hired due to the impressive references and places she had apparently worked. She wondered what Erik had done to get them. She trotted in her white heeled shoes on the soft carpet.  
Too bad she didn't know shorthand or typed in her life, the letters on the typewriter were jumbled up, not ordered like the alphabet, forcing her to scan carefully when she was looking for a "Q" or "Z". All she had on her side was perfect spelling, grammar and punctuation.

"Here's your letter, Sir."  
"Call me Mr. Bartram." The middle-aged man was tall and broad-shouldered while age and lines had improved what had probably been a rather ugly face in youth, she imagined him younger, a little cherub face that was all curls and pink cheeks—stuck onto a grown man with a gruff voice. "Did you have a late night dancing last night?"  
"Sorry, Mr. Bartram?"  
"I heard you typing. You must've took five minutes to finish a line at the pace you were going..."  
"I'm sorry Sir." She realised her mistake. "Sorry Mr. Bartram... I'm just nervous."  
He rolled his eyes, tiredly chastising her with no real enthusiasm. "Go on, get outta my sight. Go get those letters typed up. I'm making some calls later so be here at one."  
"That's fine." She turned on her heel, swearing and cursing all the words she knew in her inner monologue.  
In the grey room outside of the office door, she walked back to her post, with a new fire she looked at all the keys on the type writer, determined to remember where every single one was.  
As she started the monotonous process her mind wandered while noticing the place smelled of ink, new paper and stale cigarette smoke. It was only a couple of nights before she was speeding through New York in one of the most expensive cars on the road. He sat calmly, watching Manhattan slip by in a blink, calmly sitting shotgun while she changed gears, getting to grips with driving again before adjusting and pushing her foot nearer to the floor. The top was down, her hair danced independently in the night air. She bit back a smile as the engine roared and echoed through the busy streets. She had to shout over it to ask him why he was so calm.

She looked back at the letter that was under way, fingers poised over the keys, pushing the paper back over with a snap to start a new line, this time smacking the keys harder against the page. She brushed away a piece of her carefully coiffed hair, dark golden waves and curls brushed, pinned and sprayed into something more uniform. She stared into the page as her fingers began to make patterns, writing words faster and smoothly. She thought about the night before.

He kissed her. It started off like any other. Those kisses on-screen where two glamorous heads came together, pressing their tightly closed mouths with gusto. But this time instead of merely two mouths pressing together, fingers slid up her throat, gliding along her sharp jawline before they eased her chin down. Suddenly the ritual that had caused so much boredom with others caused her pulse to race. This wasn't like the movies. This couldn't be kissing. His breath was hers as he held her. His tongue tasted of innuendo as she blindly took it, the sensation was all that existed for those seconds.  
She was then aware of his hands touching her and what struck her first was the firm and smooth caresses instead of the usual unsure groping hands that trembled in anticipation and nervousness. The was almost an aloofness to it all as he trailed down her skirt. A strange absence of passion that de-sexualised it. Even to her, the feeling of his fingers sinking through the flesh of her hips, pressing her stomach to his, did not seem wrong.  
Despite the fact it was cold and callous, she didn't leave. She could've told him to leave at any minute, but something inside her was desperate to thaw him. Just like she tried to thaw the frozen heart of others. She had always wanted the impossible. But...

She broke away for a second, searching him for a few seconds. Her heart sank as there was nothing behind his eyes in the half-dark. Her body fought with her heart as a sound tried to break past her lips. She knew this was wrong. She knew she shouldn't. She was stepping into the unknown but she had to remain nonchalant. To pretend nothing was going to faze her. Because they were playing a game. It was a competition to see who could care the least. And she wasn't about to let him win.

She blinked, mentally shaking herself and reading what she had just wrote. She sighed, relived the three lines of writing where correct. She rolled her eyes at her own folly, looking up to see a typical small framed picture of a Baroque painting of flowers—no doubt the person who bought it thought it was the height of good taste. Every clue to what made 'Mr. Bartram' tick was a step closer to getting that list.

 

 

* * *

 

Madga was not special. She might have had some attributes that where quite uncommon, but on the grand scale of things she was another fish in the sea. There was however, one attribute that she was thankful of as she stood on a toilet seat while listening to the footsteps that echoed in the dark ladies bathroom. She was a silent breather. She had ran in her stocking-soled feet and nearly slipped with every step as the guard wandered around with a flash-light. She was like the grave as she stood on that darn seat that could creak at any time. She started to even make herself believe that she was invisible.  
She wondered if it was water or cold sweat that was running down her neck in the darkness.

She had often heard the expression, 'life is funny'. When younger she could see nothing amusing about life. But in time she had learnt that 'funny' in English also could mean strange. In that context—today was yet another very strange one indeed.

It would always start at five—when she could clock out—and from there every work night was a daring escapade. And the more she learnt the more dangerous it seemed.

She sat on the open window frame, a leg hung over the ledge as she glowered into the summer evening light.  
He had just came in, locks were useless at keeping him out of her apartment, but she didn't look up. She had a dollar in her hand and was doing an old coin trick with it. Ironically Erik was just as interested in her tricks as any other average Jo, he particularly liked to watch her do the coin one since it almost looked like she could control metal too. Maybe it made him feel a little normal, she didn't know. The coin went over and under her almost still fingers, increasing in speed. She had seen him try to do it himself once before giving up and allowing the coin to float between his fingers instead.

"Well?"  
"'Well' what?" She didn't look up. She cursed herself for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks. She was the idiot who had been pulled in by him.  
"What did you find?"

Anger built up before she threw the dollar into the sky like she was skimming a pebble, the sound of clanging and a thud sounded a few seconds afterword from the allay below.  
She was wearing a navy dress, one of the many he picked up for her when he dropped by. A pile of beautiful dress boxes with French names had now accumulated and gave the apartment an air of shabby grandeur.  
"Alright, I'll tell you what I found..."She hopped down, bare feet hitting the rough wooden floor. A pale gypsy in a silk dress, her hair was down, hanging in wild waves that intertwined like the hedgerow bushes. Her legs weren't pulp like the girls you saw in those ads that said, "Men wouldn't look at me when I was thin, but then I put on 10 lbs and now I get all the dates I want!" but she pretended not to care that she was no American beauty.

She removed a loose floor panel and took out a file, practically throwing it at him. She didn't want to look at the face that drew her in every time she saw him, the tall athletic body had a power over her that had nothing to do with metal.

She paced a little, going back to the windowsill. He was still reading.

"The man I work for, what did you know about him before this?" Erik ignored her, absorbed. She continued. "What does 'Camp X' mean to you Erik?"  
He glanced up as she looked at him. She could tell he knew. "You have me spying on a man who was trained to spy! A man who could kill me in seconds before I have time to make a sound!"  
"You're being melodramatic."  
At this she strode up to him, snatching the file that was barely useful and dropped it with a bang. "A silent kill is anything but. Yeah, that's right! I know what a silent kill is!"  
Their eyes where locked and she was the first to break. She could feel her lips curling into a half smile now that the scene of her boss slitting her throat had stopped playing in her head. "Anyway? Who did you rob today?"

There was a reason why he could spend money like he did. Erik was a thief. A casual one. He would simply take from those who could afford it. "Once they realize a few thousand is gone, it's already been a few months ago and the trail is cold." That was all he said when he finally divulged how money practically grew in his pockets.

He took off his jacket, not saying anything.

"Anyway, for future reference, when you want to manipulate someone into risking their life for you, try being nice." She sat on her bed, pulling out a novel from under it. She was enjoying The Catcher in the Rye thoroughly.

"You mean to lie? Manipulate your emotions?"  
She looked up from her book. "Did you ever hear the story about the sun and the wind?"  
He sat down on a chair that was missing a leg–instead was propped up by several books. He lit a cigarette, waiting for her to explain herself.

"One day the sun and the wind have an argument over who is the most powerful. So eventually they decide to put it to the test. They see a traveller walking with a fine new coat. The wind says to the sun 'whoever can get that coat off the traveller must be the most powerful, don't you think?' The sun agreed to this and the wind went first, he took a huge breath and blew and blew until the poor traveller could barely stand on the road...but the colder and windier it got he wrapped his warm coat around him. The wind tried to tug it away but the man clutched it all the harder." She rhymed the tale from her childhood off without even having to think about it. "Then the sun finally said that it was his turn...shining with his most glorious beams upon the traveller who soon became quite warm. Eventually the man was so hot, he had to take it off and sling it over his shoulder. The sun had won." She smiled a little. "The moral of the story was that if you want someone to do something, a warm smile is much more effective than bullying."

Erik rolled his eyes.

She slowly walked into her boss's office. Coffee in two cups wavered like brown tides by the beach. A man who looked quite familiar sat across from Mr. Bartram sat at the opposite side, arguing about something. Bartram's wrinkled baby-face was getting angry as he was being accused of something. She silently put to cups on the huge desk, hearing him emphatically reply...  
"I've kept a damn journal everyday of my life since fifteen dammit! I have a record about everything I've ever done! If I wrote that I sent that cheque a year ago, I sent it!"

Magda stood, suddenly thinking that this could be it, it could be the break-through they where waiting for.

She turned to add milk to the strangers cup. A pair of aged eyes met hers. Realisation hit her like a sledgehammer.

A solemn man who seemed to be almost hunched over with glasses had a pen in hand as he looked at them all, asking if they were gypsies before calling to the guards that the selection would take longer today. He slicked a hand over his prematurely thinning light brown hair, he was not yet middle-aged.  
Magda stood watching the man with fear, not taking her eyes off him. As if he could smell her fear, he suddenly settled his intense gaze on her. He stopped, hands behind his back. Those around her flinched. She froze, rooted to the ground in fear.  
As he stared at her, the crowd of women and children had parted like the red sea. The doctor took one hand out from behind his back, his finger indicating her to come over.  
"Kommen."  
She looked left to right, desperately hopping that he was summoning someone else. But it was useless. He was not. He told her to come over again. Her mother was crying and shaking her head as she let go of her. She walked towards him with a thudding heart, every fibre of her being tried to stop her. She was a few feet away from him. A little water leaked from an eye as she shook, staring at the ground and her boots. They were about three sizes too big and water leaked through the left sole.  
"Nachschlagen."  
She was startled as she obeyed, looking upwards. She watched him look into her eyes, searching before he nodded his head in approval before walking on down the line.

She nodded, taking the tray blindly, leaving the room, closing the door behind her. She couldn't breathe.

Madga watched as her father closed his eyes again. She held her breath, wishing she could do something and hoping her father would save her. She had a bad feeling about the man who had his hand on her shoulder, he had the prikasa about him. Bad luck.  
She held her breath as her father watched her with a peculiar look. His bright green eyes made him look all the more sick and grey in contrast to the rest of him. He was mouthing something in Roma–everything is fine–as he reached into his jacket once more, revealing a gun.

She sprinted towards her father before the claws of the doctor sunk through her skin and his fingers clasped around her collar bone like a handlebar on a bicycle. The mud gave her no grip as she was screaming in terror.  
Her father calmly began to speak, never once taking his eyes off her.

"Lasst sie los." He said. "Oder ich mich erschossen." Pietro clicked the gun, ready to shoot. "Sie geht auf den nächsten Zug."

She was shaking all over, ready to vomit her breakfast. Why was he here? That doctor? Did he see her, remember her?

The sound of a distant gunshot echoed in her brain.

* * *

 

 

  
Erik walked in the evening New York sun, passing a new television store where over a dozen kids were standing pressed up against the glass. He travelled on, ignoring high-pitched laughter and the calling of tired mothers who were calling them in for dinner. He pushed by, swallowing as he ignored the passers-by around him. Erik had left the car at a garage a few blocks away, throwing the keys to a shocked Italian kid who had been standing at the gas pump, waiting to either to fill a gas tank or wipe a windscreen. He handed the kid the first bill that came to hand and said that he'd be back in a few hours. He didn't like drawing too much attention to himself.

He came to the steps of the building that was getting a little tatty with age. He reached out and unlocked the front door of the building, he went through the doorway, no dress box today because firstly, he couldn't be bothered going in to the expensive department stores where the sales people practically tripped over themselves, sycophants who seemed to smell how heavy his pockets were. Secondly, he guessed that she had enough by now to use on a rotation basis. Although Madga was annoying to visit he did it frequently. If anything her crumbling place made him feel a little calmer—once they had their little tiff about how dangerous her job was etcetera.  
She was not like that long line of secretaries he had wooed, slept with or engaged briefly to get information. And although he had never told her, they agreed on a great number of things apart from personal morals. He was Nietzscheto her Dante.  
They had came through the war—very differently, of course—but he liked how she didn't moan like the others before her. He loathed pretending to be some besotted polite and quiet gentleman but it was necessary to glean what he could from them. He would do anything to find and kill Dr. Klaus Schmidt.

He walked up the stairs, the place was built in the early 1920's and the following decades had been tough on it. Everything was narrow, dark and grey and he couldn't help but notice the distinct smell of cat that hung in the bottom stairways. As he climbed he reached into the breast pocket of his linen suit to feel the coin he had kept for years and years, letting a comforting wave of contempt wash over him. He imagined it slicing into Schmidt's heart, leaving him choking on this final breaths and eyes wide—frightened of death and what would come after.

He had came to her door now, hand hovering over the doorknob feeling for the lock. For once there was no need to. The door was unlocked. He opened the door to see the empty small room that was in semi-darkness. Venetian blinds had been quickly pulled down in haste, not fully closed so stripes of light came in, settling over the bed and the wooden floor. He looked at the usually half-made bed to see that there was a Magda shaped lump underneath the sheets.  
He stood, unsure about what to do if she was sleeping.  
"Magda?"  
The mound moved slightly and he watched a head emerge. But her eyes where not sleepy. Nor had she been crying. Shock was on her face, and her eyes were glazed, expressionless and looking through him as if he was not there at all.  
The strips of light that settled on her and moved over the contours of her pale face as she trembled before she turned her face away. Erik noticed for the first time how hard yet brittle she seemed. Like a white marble statue in a museum.

Erik stood pointlessly, unsure what to do. He wasn't experienced with a matter like this. His first urge was to bolt and come back another time. He didn't even like looking people in the eye—so how was he meant to comfort someone? His area of expertise was forcing people to do what he wanted, manipulating them like he could with metal.

A voice that was a whisper and fragile began, stopping him from making an excuse before leaving. "I was born in Austria. I had an elder sister, two brothers, and a baby sister. Her name was Wanda. She wasn't even one year old when..." Erik stood, she was facing the wall like she was talking to herself but he did not leave since he couldn't help himself.  
"Until I was six, we travelled all over Austria, always moving except in winter. They called us 'romani' or "zigeuner" depending where we went. We sold horses, mended roofs...and other things. We were a proud family. Always clean, always fed—no matter how poor we got...we had each other to depend on."  
Erik edged closer, her voice drew in him. It was no longer the American accent that was peppered with "damn", "darn" and other slang. This was her real voice and while there was no tears or sobs, the hollow sound of ancient heartbreak evident.  
"When I told you that all my family died—it was mostly true." He sat down on the bed, a foot away since she was curled up in a ball. "Well, it's what I have reason to believe...I don't want to—" She trailed off.

In the silence Erik guiltily liked listening to her story. It was like finding out that someone could bend metal too—a relief to find someone who was like him in some way.  
His hand reached out for her shoulder. His own emptiness was overwhelming now. "I'm..."

She turned, their eyes met as a strip of light shone over her eyes. The dark murky blue shone transparent like grimy sea water in the sunlight. "Do you ever imagine how your life would be if it hadn't happened?"  
He recoiled. He didn't want to think about something that was impossible. What was the point? "No."

She ignored his short closed answer, talking about something she had suddenly remembered, saying it aloud to memorise it. "One summer, I remember dreaming of marrying a boy I saw at a horse fair."  
Erik continued watch her, waiting to hear the rest of her forgotten dreams. He had few memories of the countryside and mountains other than brief travels. After the war scenery had no effect on him. The earth was mud, vegetation and water now. He saw no beauty. He was indifferent to it.  
"He was riding a white horse. His hair was long and black. His eyes were grey and he had a face like...it was painted by Michaelangello. I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I did everything to get his attention—even magic tricks."  
"Did it work?"  
"Don't know...although maybe my older brothers put him off since they always accompanied us. We had very strict rules in our culture. Even to be kissed would mean that no one else would even want to touch you. But it seemed normal to us of course."  
They sat in silence while the city afternoon was still bustling outside. Erik couldn't still his mind anymore. Burning question after question burned in his throat until one came out. Schmidt was on his mind. "What happened today?"

She looked away, hands gripping and pulling at the sheets. "I saw the man who my father saved me from. Today."  
"What?"  
"In the camp...a German Doctor. The one who took some of the children. The one who tried to take me before my father stopped him. He was in the office with my boss, and the worst thing was how scared I felt. This old frail man who was barely my height and I felt like I was six again..."

Erik stood up like he had just been sitting on needles, looking down at her. "When was he there? Tell me!"  
"This morning. At ten. Why should you care? You weren't even at the same camp! He's not your guy!"  
"Damn!" He paced around the room. Wanting to do something but ultimately at a loss.

Magda got up, raising to her full height that was about six inches below his. "Don't you think or know I'm just as mad as you? To see the man who took me from my family–snatched me from my crying mother's hands–happily sitting there whilst drinking coffee right in front of me? Can you imagine how much strength it took not to cry? To strangle him while he bickered about money? To shout at the sky and question why he got to live and breathe in his old age while my father–" Her voice that was rising broke as her arms folded about her body and her eyes sparked with white in the semi-darkness "My father is now dust like the rest of them."

"Yes! They are!" Erik expelled, thinking about what he could do to track him down. Schmidt.

"I hate you!" She meant it as she could stand him no longer. "You are so self-absorbed in your own misery, you have became like the people you want to kill! Heartless! A machine!"  
He turned to look at her, finally looking her in the eye. As she ripped pins out of her hair so the dishevelled style cascaded in wild mess. "Egotistical!" She watched him as he took another step closer and she ripped off a cheap pearl necklace like a pet ripping off it's collar, the sign of ownership. She opened her mouth to say the last word as the bouncing of moon coloured beads rattled like a hailstorm. But he had beaten her to it.

He pushed her against the wall and they crashed into the brick plastered wall like two lovers in violent passion, his right hand tangled and gripping the roots of hair at the base of her skull, while her long fingers sunk like talons into his flesh. He took one of her claws and crushed it in his free hand.  
He hissed that she apologise while they gripped each other in their painful embrace. She retorted with only colourful language as a response before ripping back her hand and his so quickly she cracked it on the wall she was forced against before reaching back to unleash his hand from her hair while her bones screamed and throbbed.

Shouts muffled from outside the room now, they had not thought about Madga's neighbours in their passion. A woman with the high screeching voice that usually is reserved for telling off her offspring was beating on the door and turning the stiff handle. Erik, still enraged had no interest in hearing what the voice had to say, and reached out a injured hand to the door handle, switching the lock closed.

The pounding continued and threats about calling the cops were screeched out with the sound of a child screaming for it's mother in confusion. Magda, now exhausted from anger pushed him away, unforgiving while she told the busybody to get back to making dinner and that the show was over. Magda could sense her ear on the door, greedy for gossip about the quiet girl from the top floor. "Did you hear me? Scram you ol' bag!"  
After a flustered and indignant voice hissed and swore about the youth of today, steps sounded as the woman plodded heavily back downstairs.

Her anger was purged now, her left middle and index finger was probably sprained or broken as she experimented opening it out and clenching it with little success. She turned to see Erik, opening the blinds that had been pulled down so that the afternoon sun poured in. His right hand lay limp and useless with two fingers curled in a little at his side.

She sat down on the bed, springs creaking as usual while she inspected her injury, feeling the bones through skin that was starting to swell. While she gingerly felt she looked up to see Erik reach for a cotton handkerchief inside his jacket. It was pressed and had the letter 'R' sewn in one corner.  
"Need a hand?" She tried not to smirk at her own lame attempt at a joke given the bad situation. He shook out the folded square of cotton.  
"Do you have a knife?"

She got up to look in her drawer of random possessions. Travel papers, passport, a ball of yarn, an old apicture of a spitfire plane, a bottle of purfume and an old ivory comb were just some of the things she had to dig through to get to an old cut-throat razor that she sometimes used when her hair got too long to put up. "What about a razor?"  
"Perfect." He replied.  
The air was calm in the warm sunshine that swam around them, the early signs of evening turned the walls apricot coloured as they sat on the wrinked white sheet. She flicked it open with one hand and gave it to him.  
"Hold this corner. Tight."  
She took a corner and held it like he did so that the fabric was taught. With his broken hand he commanded the razor to float in the air, pointing down. He frowned in concentration as he made it saw back and forth.

She didn't know if it was his face, the comic way the old razor sawed back and forth suspended in mid-air, the impossibly of it all or the fact that they had forgotten their very real fight just moments ago-but she couldn't stop grinning and suppressing a bubbling laugh from inside. He glanced at her as they pulled the handkerchief into long frayed strips, the threads ripped their eyes met. Her hair was tucked behind her ears and he looked at her. Really looked at her this time. He suddenly realised how her face was like an Egyptian coffin he had seen at the museum in New York. Bold eyes set in a face with features that got smaller as the eye travelled down, from the wide cheekbones to the smaller full lips, a Queen Nephiti with her strong bold features but light colours resumed holding out her palm and tying her hand near the knuckles together. Her hair like her eyes had so many colours it was a vague indefinite colour that was not quite light and not quite dark.

"Would you like your fortune told?" She looked up, the almond eyes framed with long lashes and dark circles. "You don't need to cross my palm with silver. That's a myth, you know."  
"I know." He said. "I've been told my fortune before."


	12. Chapter 12

Vengeance and passion. Love and hate. These words described what she felt all at once. The feelings blurred until she could no longer differentiate between them and she was now stomping through life with the feeling of something clawing at her heart.

Erik had been the reason that this had started. She knew that. This new Magda was getting better at being bad. She walked and talked a little more forcefully yet there was a charm to it. Once Erik was by her side she was cockier. She could steal whatever was necessary: keys, codes, information, anything with just quick fingers and slight of hand. He was the reason for the nagging conscience at the back of her mind. Yet she couldn't get enough of him. Erik himself was her reward. It sickened her.

"Jeez louise...what am I doing?" She mumbled it to herself as she came out of the key-cutters, the newly cut key lay in her pocket as she rushed back to the office. As she waited in line she had been thinking about him again. She was so stupid. He was dangerous and she hated him and yet...couldn't stop herself.

Last night he was sleeping beside her. Both half dressed in the oppressive night heat she had been reading to him. It was the last thing that she had expected to happen but there he was. Breathing steadily while listening to her read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. She teared her eyes away from him each time she glanced down as she read in the lamplight. Head sunk into the lumpy feather pillow, his eyes flickered behind closed lids and looked up when she paused the story in the early hours, checking if he was asleep. He remained awake for the entirety until her voice tired half-way through the novel.  
She remembered opening her mouth to say something to Erik in the early hours of the morning. Not a word came out. She just sat on the mattress, taking in the scene. Suddenly he was young, mouth half open. His face misted with perspiration shone the lamplight, a longer auburn piece of hair that was usually swept back in the fashionable haircut now lay stuck to his brow. Behind the white shirt he was wearing, his chest rose and dropped. A deep tan with freckles crept up his forearms, lightening at the biceps. A strong fist lay balled on his chest.  
She looked closer, creeping over a couple on inches and holding back her long hair so it wouldn't tickle his face and wake him. She had no idea what she was looking for. A clue? Something abnormal?  
She looked down at one of the most masculine faces she had ever seen. No feature was remotely feminine as her eyes hovered from one to the other. She took in how his stubble creeped down his neck and the hairs glinted a golden red under the soft light. Erik suddenly moved. Magda jerked her head back while feeling guiltily intrusive for examining him like that.

Magda didn't know a lot about making love compared to most people her age. Cheap smutty paperbacks about romance and sex had been her only guide. In the books she had read there was a great deal written about "soft creamy thighs", "hot gasps" and how one of the lovers inevitably leave before dawn. Everything else warned about the dangers of adultery or anything pre-marital.

She wondered how many times Erik had done that before immediately wishing her mind would stop wandering to such sordid places at this time of the night. Yet she couldn't stop. She didn't feel a "hunger in her belly" like in the novels but she did have a compulsion to be in his arms at that very moment.

At that moment a welcome soft breeze travelled in the window and she felt it kiss her damp body and seep through her cotton slip dress. The hair at the nape of her neck still clung stickily. Magda got up off the bed, leaving him in settled sleep to sit at the fire escape. The night was clear and a bright summer moon lit the apartments and line upon line of washing below in dim white.

"He's getting in my head..." She mumbled it to herself sadly smirking a little as she got to the office building. Her hand touched the revolving door.

"Excuse me, Miss."  
She spun around. The key was still in her hand. A man was there. Dressed in a black suit. A car behind him.  
"Yes?" Her response sounded like a child had made it. Her feet seemed rooted to the ground. Fight or flight.  
"Come this way." He flipped a badge for a second. His blazer was weighed down by a gun.  
She knew she had no choice either way and could feel it. It was in his eyes. This was bigger than the police. Illegal immigration. Was it the FBI? Who was he? Where was the car taking her?

"Wait! My boss'll–"  
"Miss. You have five seconds to get in the car."

She tried to swallow her fear as she half ran to the opening car door. Hands guided her roughly inside. The hostile politeness killed the scream that burned in her chest. She was alone.

 

* * *

 

She had sat stiffly in the back seat, squashed by two burly men on either side of her. Her heart raced as midday Manhattan slipped by. She held in a shaky breath as the driver made another turn through the crowded streets. The heat glared in through the glass as everything gleamed through the polluted haze. The stale smell of cigarettes and something unknown clung to the car's leather interior.

"Miss." She flinched, turning her head. The man behind her roughly covered her head while the other grabbed her clawing hands in place. She screamed out but both men held her arms still while she struggled. A click sounded near her ear as she heard the sound of leather squeaking. The man who was sitting in the passenger seat told her he would shoot if she wouldn't stop struggling and put her head down to her knees. At this, she tensed up with her eyes squeezed shut. She could imagine the bullet slicing through her brain. The car rumbled on through the city and then onto the highway. Slight bump after bump. She had no idea where she was going. Sound was the only thing that existed. If she was going to die these would be her last moments. Her own shaky breathing and the sound of a Cadillac cruising on smooth American road would be the last sounds, the glimpse of sunlight through sackcloth would be her last sight, the last touch would be the vice-like grip that cut the circulation off each hand.

She had no idea where she was when they lifted the bag off her head in the darkness. Handcuffed to a chair, she listened for danger. Anxiety bubbled through her veins and settled in her heart. She was seeing dizzying stars in the dark and wondered if she could take it any longer. She was waiting for the most terrible things she could imagine.

"Do you know where you are?"

The answer died in her throat as the sudden bright light clicked on and blinded her so she squinted through suddenly teary eyes. "No."

Through the blurred vision she could make out a desk shape with someone behind it. The chair screeched back and a file slapped on the desk before the paper flicked over and the dark blurry figure became slowly clearer.

"Who is your employer?"

"John Bartram."

Footsteps suddenly shuffled across the tiled floor behind her. She let out a little moan of terror. She had no idea who was behind her in the dark. She shook her head as a glass of liquid hovered over her face, turning away from it desperately. Her voice was dry, weak and feeble. "N-no!"  
Fingers laced through the roots of her hair before yanking back her head and forcing the glass to her mouth as another hand clamped her nose shut. She struggled as she drank in forced huge gulps, then drowned in the water as she choked for air, making it only worse as it filled her lungs. The fresh threat of death sunk it's claws in her as she felt her eyes rolling back as the liquid ran down her face and body like a torrent. Suffocating darkness came.

The clamp from her nose and head was suddenly removed. She slumped forward. In the confusion she felt herself coughing up what seemed like half of her internal organs. Nose and mouth both battled her convulsions to force air into her body.  
For about thirty minutes she spluttered and gasped for air. She finally looked up, still trembling uncontrollably in the pool of water and spittle. The tears of shock proceeded to blur her vision yet again.

The male voice came again. "Do you know a man named Erik Lehnsherr?"

Her answer was more like a cough. "Yes."

"Is he your lover? Fiancé?"

"No."

He exhaled. Irked. He assumed she was lying. "Have you had sexual relations with this man and has he in return asked for information?"

"No."

She looked sideways and before she had time to dodge, a sudden fist pummelled her wet cheekbone with so much force she could only see black for a second. The pain came shooting through after the shock. Her ears rang. Her forearms also in pain since they had pointlessly rose to defend her face. Handcuff lacerations now bleed a little down the wet skin and onto the arm rests.

"Where were you born?"

"Austria." She hissed it in pain.

"To whom?"

She heard something that sounded like sharp steel from behind. She let the information flow in a torrent to save herself. "Pietro and Magda Maximoff. Gypsies. They're dead."

"How did you get to America?"

"An American Lieutenant from Illinois. Bill Barnes. He helped be with the papers."

A pause. Her interrigator had fair greying hair and a yellow pallor underneath the light. His reading glasses glinted in his hand. "What did you offer him in return?"

"Nothing. He was a good man."

The interrogator pressed on. Finding out everything from her age to the fact she had been living in Berlin's Russian district after the war. Particularly pressing at the mention of Russia. They wanted to know everything.

"What was your motive for initially living in the Russian district?"

She looked at him, wondering why he suspected that a child would volunteer to be a spy in America. "My friends lived there."

"Were they Russian?"

"No." She said. The questions were idiotic and her mind was racing. What was their plan for her? She still hadn't stopped shaking, goose bumps, still soaked. She felt a little strange too. Numbness crept over her. She watched as the floor seemed to move, rippling like water. Question after question. Erik's targets? She didn't know. Did he collaborate with Russia? She didn't know. She was distracted by the intensifying colours of the room.

"Has Erik Lehnsherr told you who he has murdered? How many people?"

She slumped further down in her seat, she was starting to sweat. The floor was moving like the sea and monsters were waiting in the depths for her. She glanced up at the pale man, wondering how he could be so calm. Didn't he see the ground moving too? She mumbled a "no" as she moved her feet away from the floor.

"Seven people Magda. Do you want to be one of them?"

She shook her head as something moved under the water. Her lids drooped, looking through her lashes. He was leaving, her interrogator. As much as she didn't like him she was afraid of being alone with the moving floor and the breathing walls and the person who might attack her from behind again. The patterns engulfed her as her mind could no longer fight it. Words lingered in the air when the door closed. "Leave her for a few hours. Then we'll start again."

"How are we now?"

Her mouth was desert mud dry and her tongue had glued itself to the roof of her mouth. She pulled it off like old gum on a seat and sucked in her cheeks. One was tender and swollen. He had been gone only for about fifteen minutes. She thought. Magda noticed that her clothes had dried and the floor was a little less wet. Had it been hours?

It was a different man this time. This one had dark hair but oiled so thoroughly that it was almost blue black under the harsh light. He had the wrinkles of a man in his late thirties but his voice sounded like he gargled gravel. He also looked at a file. Slowly he took out pictures, rowed them up, they faced her. Strangers smiled out from the shiny gloss.

"Know these people?"

"No."

"They're all dead. Victims of Mr. Lehnsherr. Murdered."

She looked at the edge of one photo where the corner had been crinkled and cracked with age. She chewed the inside of her lip as her eyes settled on the shirt another victim was wearing. She heard more fluttering of sheets but her brain seemed too slow to do much. The floor was still rippling a little.

"Lehnsherr is one of our most wanted criminals. A seducer, murderer and a traitor to everyone. He must be stopped."

Magda wondered what would happen when she needed the toilet. She wondered if these people even cared if one more type of bodily fluid was leaking all over the floor. She realised that while she was thinking about her toilet needs, the interrogator was expecting an answer. It took a little longer than usual to think of one. "Go on..." She said rasping a little.

"We need you to gain his trust and information. That will tell us what he knows. His targets." He paused. He leaned in closer, eyes talking to her. "His talents."

She looked him in the eye for the first time. He looked deadly serious. She knew she wasn't going to leave until she had practically agreed to getting herself killed. Erik Lehnsherr would collect one more murder victim in that file of his. Magda was going to be a double agent. In her heart it already felt wrong. A bad thing to do despite this was the side of law and order.

"He has seduced at least twelve women over the last two years. After months of tracking him down we found that he has left a trail of—" He looked into her eyes as if searching for something, "—indiscretions. He has seduced translators, secretaries working in British intelligence in Europe and killed two men before we picked up the trail a few months ago while investigating breaches of security inside our own walls. The problem is he doesn't stay still for long. He's proven to be—as the English say—a bugger to catch."

She needed a response that wouldn't get her in trouble either way. "Hmm."

"The CIA will reward you for your co-operation." She watched him neaten papers before closing the file. She noted that his hands were quite hairy. "We have already bugged everything and know everything about you. Wherever you are, we'll hear you. If you try to run, we'll be watching. If you do, we'll be waiting for you with a gun. Remember that. This is your repentance for aiding a criminal. We shall contact you with instructions. You never contact us."

"Okay."

"Remember, your main objective is to get him where we want him. If the arrest fails, then you will take his place. Understand that and you'll go far."

She took a breath of stale air. Frowning. "What about my job? Erik would be suspicious if I quit."

The response was curt. "You keep the job. A call had been received by Bartram that you have been in an accident. You hit your head outside Wilson's fruit and vegetable store on your lunch break. A hanging basket of melons fell on you as you closed the shop door. You collapsed, went to hospital where Dr Fry checked for injuries. Nothing serious and no concussion. Just grazed wrists and a sore cheek from where the wire cage fell on you. Wilson sent you some plums and grapes as an apology. Everything is on record."

Magda blinked. Taking it all in. Scared. She couldn't do this. "What if he doesn't come tonight? What if he doesn't tell me anything? That's not my fault."

"Have I not made this clear enough?" A laugh rumbled like thunder, cruel eyes narrowed at her. "Enough of this pretence. I can't stand a woman being coy. Seduce him—you've had your fair share I'm sure—and do anything in your power to get him around your little finger. Do you understand?"

She understood only one thing perfectly clearly.  
She was now a slave to the CIA. Whoever they were.

* * *

 

"It's...alive!"

The lady in front of Magda hid her face in her hands and leaned on her partner's shoulder. They were in the cinema watching the old film Frankenstein. Magda watched, not horrified but thoughtful as she hovered another piece of popcorn over her lips. In the film Frankenstein's assistant had accidentally smashed the preserved normal human brain and instead stole an abnormal human brain to finish creating the monster. Do brains really look physically different if they are abnormal? She chewed wondering what they'd find if someone ever cut her up.

The film played on and she wanted to glance over at him to see his expression or what he was doing. She had been the one who had suggested going to the cinema. The film had barely started and she couldn't concentrate. Their words echoed in her mind. Wherever you are, we'll hear you. If you try to run, we'll be watching. If you do, we'll be waiting for you with a gun.

Magda shoved some more salted popcorn in her mouth. Seduce him.

She watched the screen intently. Frankenstein's beautiful fiancee filled the frame in black and white, horrified at her screaming and crazed husband-to-be.

How do you seduce someone? She looked over moving only her eyes yet again, finding his profile that was illuminated dimly by the screen.

She turned towards him, leaning her face in a little. Held her breath. "Erik?" She whispered it close.

A second passed, he was watching the film intently before he turned his head. "What?"

"I..." She opened and closed her mouth. She couldn't do it. "Would you like some?" She offered the popcorn.

He looked back at the screen after giving her a frowning half smile. "No."

She remained silent for the rest of the film, angry at her cowardice.

They walked out into the street, long summer night stretched out before them, full of endless possibilities that only New York could offer. People jostled everywhere, pouring out from cars, taxi's and buses. Crowds bustled to and fro each with somewhere new to go. Magda looked up at the old buildings staring down at them. She let herself be lead through the city of shining lights, neon signs, glowing windows. Beeping of horns, juke boxes, shouting and roar of engines came together to make a cacophony that was almost music.

She laughed as she walked beside him. "How ugly it all is!" She took his arm as she trotted in heels, dress rustling.

They ignored the walk signal, walking through the speeding traffic. "Hideous." He agreed.

"What shall we do now?" People mumbled as they stepped back onto the sidewalk, unimpressed at the couples complete disregard for the law or safety. She ignored the stares, eyes fixed ahead as she continued. "Too late to eat...too early to sleep."

"There's a 'we' now?"

"Fine then." She replied with a dirty look. "There isn't." She let her arm slip from his and walked faster, leaving him behind and let the crowd ingulf her.

She marched for a few blocks, weaving through streets in the fading sunlight. She headed in the direction of a small park she knew was a couple of blocks away. She planned to sit there and scowl. Each street she got to seemed to be less busy. People drifted off to nowhere and soon she was alone completely.

She watched her long silhouette stay in front for a few steps. Everything seemed far too silent at that moment. Even the traffic, so thick and congested minutes ago seemed like it was ten miles away.

A shrill ring rang into the evening air. A yard away stood a pay-phone. She looked up and down the street. All the small stores were closed. No one was there. The ring called her urgently. She didn't want to answer. She wanted to ignore it, feign deafness. But the consequences of disobedience make her legs walk over and she picked the receiver off the hook, mind and body battling each other so her movements were hesitant.

"Hello?"

The Metropolitan museum was relatively quiet since it was a weekday. An occasional line of privileged private school darlings were shooed through the massive rooms that echoed off the marble that seemed to cover most surfaces.

Magda sat there, the phone call's directions rang in her ears since she heard them the night before. She replayed the voice in her head, over and over–more menacing each time.

She had asked for directions to "The Fortune Teller by Georges de La Tour". Her gut churned at the sight of it. She had been told to sit there and wait. She did, looking around for a gun lurking around every corner, she tentatively set her backside down on the seat that was cold and hard. The painting showed a dandy, rich young fellow impatiently waiting to hear his future from an old gypsy woman. The haggard lady was dressed exotically like the two other gyspy girls standing behind him. They were both dark and lovely, black hair and eyes with brown skin and pretty faces. They both took riches subtlety.  
But there was also a third woman. She stood beside him, eyes glued in a sideways stare while her fair face was angled facing the viewer. Her face was a perfect oval of serene alabaster. She looked like the perfect woman of the time. She was severing off his pocket watch. The watch was inscribed with the words "AMOR" and "FIDES"

Love and faith.

"A magnificent painting, is it not? It only came here last year."

She sat stiffly, he was right behind her. "I don't know much about art."

"Not knowing much about art never harmed anyone. Actually, not knowing much about lots of things makes you a good citizen as far as we're concerned. You don't see shoe-shine boys endanger millions of lives by selling our secrets to the soviets, do you?" The aged voice had not lost the German tone or accent. She stared hard at the painting, forcing back the quaking anger. How? Why him, a man who should've paid for his crimes? Who was the CIA?

"We are going to give you a trail of breadcrumbs. You and Erik are to be Hansel and Gretel if you like. He will think that he will be getting close to finding him. Firstly, we need to know who he's looking for. And why. We'll contact you in twenty-four hours."

"Fine."

"Unless...You already know. Then it would be in your best interest if you told me right now." Magda stared ahead at the painting, she dared to stay silent.  
"You have something to s–?"

"Why did you choose this painting?" Her interruption echoed around the large room. A wooden panel squeaked underneath his feet. She was thinking about her father now. She remembered the last day she saw him. He was so bold and brave even as he faced death. He didn't crawl meekly out of this life, he looked the enemy in the face.

"I thought it might inspire you. Or at the very least you would see a kindred spirit." His hand dropped on her shoulder and she held her breath involuntarily. She looked at the pale girl who was stealing, severing the watch off the chain. No one would suspect her as much as the others. But who was she really?

"Sorry, but I don't see a kindred spirit in this painting. All I see is four thieves and a fop who should know better."

She heard the voice lower, right beside her ear now. His slightly laboured breath wheezed through his nose. "Don't think I've forgotten who you really are. The rules may have changed. But the game remains the same." The last syllables was practically growled.

"What? What's the game?" She snapped back.

The hand lifted off her shoulder. He left her there. She turned to see an empty room and an open door. She looked back at the painting before leaving. She needed to get the bus to work.

She needed to decide who to betray.

She stared at the crack on her ceiling. The water damage made the ceiling look like old parchment. Her conscience plagued her, she wanted to just sleep instead. It was impossible. Erik wouldn't come tonight and she would probably be tortured into telling them everything. She was alone.

She heard a knock on the door. She didn't reply as she closed her eyes and wished for sleep. Her face had sweated most of her make-up off. The lipstick had rubbed off hours ago.

"Magda." He knew she was there. He wasn't asking. It sounded like reasoning.

"What do you want?" She rubbed her hand over her face, hoping to swipe the shine away.

He was clearly impatient. "The door is locked. May I come in?"

"Why are you asking for permission? Locked doors haven't stopped you before!"

The fuel for betrayal had been waiting for her in a desk drawer when she walked into work that day. A plain brown envelope. A list. Something that could be stolen from Bartram's office. Erik would fall for it. She knew that.

He opened the door. The distinct rustle of flowers in brown paper swaddling entered the room and she sat up. "Why flowers?"

He closed the door, a stubborn piece of hair fell out of place as he tried not to argue. His fingers raked back his hair, sweeping it back into style with one single movement. "Because I'm sorry. I was wrong."

"No you're not. I'm just like the others to you." Her bare feet found the old wooden floor below. Her chin tilted down while looking up wearily at him.

He gritted his teeth. "Magda...just take the damn flowers."

"No!"

"Fine!" He threw the flowers across the room, petals whistling before the tulips slapped against the wall. He turned to the door as if to leave but something came to mind. "I came up here expecting you to believe me. I thought..." His eyes met hers. Something had changed in them. But she didn't know what. "You proved me wrong, Miss Maximoff. You are like the others."

He reached out in the direction of the door, it opened violently, banging off the wall and chipping paint.

"Erik." She walked after him. "Don't leave!"

She went after him in the dark hallway, everywhere was hot and stuffy. "Erik, please." She grabbed for his arm. "I.." He yanked is arm away, descending the stairs.

"Stop or I'll make you stop Magda. Remember?"

She stopped in her tracks. She let the expression of pain contort her face before he would turn around. She had no choice. He would be gone.

"I have a list. Erik, it's what you've been looking for." She waited. He stopped and looked up at her in the old stairwell. She let a small smile tug at her otherwise sad face.

Early summer evening wafted in through the window. She bent down on her knees to rifle through some records that had been splayed over the floor. A Miles Davies record was pulled out, carefully set on the record player she watched as the needle moved over the smooth black disk. Turning up the volume so that it filled the room with jazz music, she turned around. She wondered if they were listening in.

Instead of the expensive dresses he had given her, she was wearing her own light blue cotton dress.

He was now reading a newspaper, dishevelled in a suit as usual on the bed. He had spent an hour studying the list and making notes on the first piece of paper available. She walked over and hitched up the dress so that she could crawl over the mattress to his side of the bed. He turned the page, ignoring her as she pecked his shoulder with a kiss.

"Erik?"

"In a minute."

"Come on. You're not going to find him in there…we've gotten far enough today. The work starts tomorrow."

He gave her a dirty look before turning a page and throwing the paper down in a lump. "Happy?"

"Dance with me."

He said no immediately while half-heartedly pushing her away as she climbed on top of him, relentlessly kissing and stroking him while she made a soft dirty cackle. She took one of his inky hands prisoner, nuzzling it to her cheek–persuading it and the rest of his body to follow her. She tried to forget that it was all a trap. She wanted to pretend that she had no motive.

She picked up a black disk and replaced it on the record player. It crackled as the song started.

"I'm not a dancer." He stood up, walking over to her as she swayed and stepped about to something exotic. "What music is this?"

A man began to sing in Spanish. "It's what they dance to in Cuba apparently. Isn't it fantastic?"

He fell into step as she twirled, stepping back and forth in time, chest to chest. Magda laughed. "I thought you didn't dance at all!"

"The night I had followed you to that bar where your friend sang...I watched you dance."

She felt a blush rise before turning her face away from his. "I didn't think you saw that, I just...you must've thought I was crazy."

He exhaled in a way that was close to a laugh as she missed a step in her embarrassment. He lead her back into the repetitive dance rhythm. "I liked it. It was different."

"Don't lie," She twirled around once, taking both of his hands again. "You don't have to."

He stopped dancing abruptly and her bare feet stepped onto his shoes. She looked up. He watched her intently. "It's the truth. I'm not trying to flatter you. Or manipulate you. I don't want to."

She couldn't hold his gaze for more than a few seconds. Guilt ate her up as she studied the threads of his linen shirt with intense interest. She lowered her voice into a whisper as arms wrapped around her. Her face buried a little in his chest. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek as she squeezed her eyes shut.  
"I can't be trusted, Erik."

He either didn't hear her or didn't care. He pulled away, his hand tilted her chin reluctantly up. She leaned in for the kiss, desperately hoping it would be as cold and detached like the last. Her heart sunk as she felt it already. He had started to thaw.

* * *

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

He awoke in complete darkness and panic gripped him. He reached out blindly to grab something—anything—imagining that the faces of the silent hungry wolves that hunted his dreams were just inches away from this face. Where was he? He searched through the memories, empty stomach twisting in fear. Flashes of light accompanied with pain was all he could remember. The fear of death hung over him as he scuffled on the floor, hearing the echo of the place, feeling smooth tile under his knees and hands. He could feel the grimy dirt that hung on them when he lifted them up.

His mother always kept the house so clean. Erik would spend hours on the floor, playing with his collection of toy soldiers—every one was hand painted with the help of his steady-handed father—and never once did he get up with dirty knees or hands. He had never really thought about it until now. She was the first one up every morning, working endlessly and never complaining.  
A sob escaped as he found the wall, hand hitting against more tiles before sinking against it, stifling his cries.

"Hallo?"

The whisper that seemed to come from inches away making Erik yelp, thrashing his arms to keep the whisper of voice away. He called out into the darkness, asking who was there.

The voice replied with an accent that was quite German, ignoring the question but saying that it would be best that Erik stayed where he was, and to close his eyes if the lights went on. The voice although hoarse was full of fatherly concern. Erik asked again who the voice belonged to.

"My name?" The voice paused as if unsure he should say. "Pietro."  
"Why are you here?""  
"Shush child. Too many questions for now. I'm tired. Just stay where you are. They've put you in here with me to frighten you."  
"Frighten me?"  
"Quiet now. You need to rest and morn for those you have lost my boy. Do it now rather than later."  
"Why do you care? What would you know of it?" He snapped harshly, the pain made him angry.  
"Sleep my boy...one...two...three..."  
That was the last thing he heard before slipping out of consciousness. And then...

"Rise and shine little Erik...did you enjoy having a cell-mate for your first night in the cells?" Dr. Klaus Schmidt looked down fondly at him, his empty pale eyes showed no emotion, however. They could've belonged to a corpse it seemed.

"We found the boy on the floor Sir. We asked the gypsy and he said the boy had fainted at the sight of him."

"Good. Very good." He tuned to Erik once more. "I wanted to show you what will happen if you do not co-operate. If you do, however...the new world that we shall create will be in the palm of your hands."

Erik looked down. In the room there was nothing but the chair he was tied to. He couldn't feel his hands. A light shone from above, it's light was blinding.  
"Let's begin." Schimidt's order extinguished the lights. The whir of a projector sounded. The click of the first slide.

Erik opened his eyes, he always awoke from nightmares in silence, no matter how bad they were. He was alone, in the present. He focused on simply breathing. He was not there anymore. He had escaped Schmidt.  
He looked around the room in the bright morning light. Faded wallpaper that peeled a little off the brick and plaster that was cracked decorated her walls. The only window led onto the fire escape. It was open, the blinds were pulled up and they moved back and forth with the city breeze. Everything in the room was old and worn from use. The most exotic things other than the colourful tulle dresses he had bought her was an old oriental silk screen that stood in the corner. A faded tiger prowled on the threadbare silk, waiting for either the villagers or the various animals that were depicted in the scene.

He looked down and peeled off the thin white cotton sheet that covered him, vaguely thinking that usually he was the first one to leave beds.

He stretched a little, looking down at his hands before cracking his knuckles. His feet hit the rough wooden boards and he sat staring at the floor for a few minutes, waiting for the shaky feeling of dread to leave him. He hated those dreams.

He suddenly realised that his hands was empty and immediately looked for the coin, finding his trousers beside the bed. Some day soon he would finally kill him. With the help of the girl.

"Are you up? Hello?" Her voice came from behind the screen and the sound of water splashing in the tub told him she was taking a bath.

He rubbed his eyes in the early morning light. "Yes." He was eager to get down to business, his body less so.

"What time is it?" She spoke over the sound of a soapy sponge rubbing skin and the loud dribbling of water.

"You have exactly one hour and a half to get to work."

He heard her sigh and mumble about all of the time and effort it took to fill a bath with just a lousy tap and a kettle. The water sloshed as he guessed she was reclining while scrubbing some more in the old copper tub. The sound of it made him think about washing too. The morning was already so warm he couldn't bring himself to put clothes on yet. He thought about swimming in a cold lake and as he dwelled it became more like a daydream.

He listened as the sound of a waterfall heralded her emergence from the tub. As she dried and rubbed herself down he made himself decent. He hadn't slept with her yet, and he was fine with that. He had seduced so many into thinking he loved them even the word 'love-making' made his gut churn. He sometimes would remember one and feel a mixture of guilt and repulsion for both himself and them. But he did what he had to do.

Magda stepped out from behind the screen, holding up her undone dress so she concealed her undergarments. He noted that her pale skin had gotten darker as she padded barefoot.

"Could you button me up?" She sat down on the bed with her bare back facing him.

He moved behind her, starting at the bottom buttons. "What did you do before I was at your disposal in the morning? Ask the woman downstairs?"

"I can do it myself but I thought that you could make yourself useful for once. I should be charging you rent since you hog my bed." She paused a little as his hand brushed over her back while negotiating a tricky button hole. "Where did you sleep when you didn't do it here?"

"I 'hog' your bed? Is this the same girl who fell asleep holding my hand last night?" He smirked as she bowed her head a little in embarrassment.

She changed the subject. "Are you nearly finished with the buttons?"

"Some are tricky." He brushed her unruly hair out of the way as he secured the top. "Finished." She turned around, looking sheepish. Assuming it was nerves he smiled before straightening up. "Get what we need. Then get out. Once you get those addresses then we can start finding them. One of them must know where he is. This time next year both of them won't be alive. I'll make sure of it."

"And if we don't succeed? If I don't succeed?"

He threw on his shirt. "Didn't you say my palm had the entire earth in it? I think it means that things will happen in my favour."

Magda shook her head. "You readily believe what you want to see...you even listen to the lines on your hand if it'll be of any benefit to you. My father said that we should approach such superstition with caution."

Erik raised his eyebrows at her warning, finding it more amusing than she liked. He flicked the coin expertly in the air before letting it hover. "The last gypsy I met cast a spell on me you know. I've always wondered if anyone else on this earth can do what I do. I wonder if I'm destined to wander alone."

"You probably are the only one." She replied honestly. "And we never cast spells. Well, my family didn't. My mother was a good catholic and didn't like lying about cursing people to make them afraid of us. My father however, he didn't need to lie about casting spells or telling futures. He was magic itself." Magda walked closer. "You look sad Erik. Don't think that because you're the only one who can bend metal, it means that you have to be alone. Don't live in self-imposed exile and blame it on everyone else. That's what I did."

He turned to find his tie as an excuse, walking away. He didn't want to listen any more. "Do your hair and let's go. You have information to steal."

* * *

 

She slipped by the cleaning lady who stooped over a strain on the carpet. Silent as smoke, she made it down the hallway and to the stairs. Magda emerged a little breathless, not from the exercise but the nerves and adrenalin that urged her on. Keys lay in two different pockets. She opened the familiar door along the long colourless corridor and closed it silently. She stepped by her usual desk and opened the door to her employers office. She let her eyes adjust to the dark room since the blinds were shut. The morning light that came from behind them just about made everything visible.

She bent down close, stopping to slip on gloves. Her boss was an ex-spy after all. He'd know to dust for fingerprints. She slipped the duplicate key in the lock of the cabinet and proceeded to riffle through the files, keeping an eye out for the one she'd been ordered to steal. She searched every file twice and could find nothing. Although one name appeared that made her pause. It was the name of an old friend she peeked inside for a glimpse of an address. Bill Barnes.  
But panic made her riffle with more desperation as she thought about the threat of the CIA that loomed over her. She exhaled heavily as she closed the cabinet, and looked around for other possibilities. She looked under the desk noticing a locked drawer. It was time to put those long nibble fingers and a piece of wire to good use.

Bill Barnes emerged into the New York sun, his hat doing it's best to shade him. He was already thirsty. A tall, blonde man he was forty years old with a wife and two children. War was long past him and the life behind a desk was his reality now. He sometimes travelled back to Europe in his mind. Back to Berlin. A woman who he had fell in love with lived there. But it was not meant to be.

"Lieutenant Barnes?"

He stopped in his tracks in the leafy neighbourhood and turned around. He saw a young tallish pretty girl, dark blonde with light golden skin. She was wearing a lemon coloured dress with a matching hat. Other than addressing him by his name, there was something familiar about her.

"Miss? Do I know you?"

She faltered, her smile wavered. "It's Magda. You helped me get the papers I needed...remember the Berlin airlift?"

Bill searched for something to say, he couldn't imagine that this sunny girl in a lovely dress had once been where many called hell on earth. "I'm sorry, er, Magda. But I helped many people with their papers in those days. There was quite a queue if memory serves me right..."

"I'm sorry." Magda shook her head in embarrassment. "It was a such long time ago. But I just wanted to let you know that I remember you. Thank you. Not everyone would've saved a street rat who had nothing more than some blackmarket goods and a few bad magic tricks."

She turned quickly before tears could prick her eyes.

Her final words released a flood of memories. He paused as a little gangly girl with a deep dimple on her cheek appeared before him. He reached for her arm, beaming while laughing at the impossibility of their meeting. "The little red witch! It can't be you!" She had gone from being a stranger to a close friend in seconds as he took one hand in both of his.

"Oh no!" She winced at the old stage name. "Please don't call me that. It's Magda. Maximoff."

"I'm sure you can still do the card trick, no? It was one of my favourites."

A curious pedestrian passed as she laughed under the dappled shade of an oak tree. "Pick a card. The first one that pops into your head. Keep it in your mind."

"Alright."

"Put your hand in your breast pocket. Try to find it."

He shook his head at her wonderful tricks. His had searched deep in his breast pocket but he didn't feel anything unusual, smile fading a little. "It's not there."

She raised an eyebrow at his lack of faith in her. "Are you sure? Try your cigarette case. Open it."

He obeyed. He pulled out the tin and cracked it open. "Jeez..."

"Is that your card?"

He gave her back the queen of spades which she threw back into her little white handbag. "You're one heck of a gal, Magda." He paused looking at his tin to see if it had been tampered with but gave up. "How did you know to find me here?"

"Friend of a friend." She blurted it quickly. "But they told me not to tell."

He watched her with new suspicion as wind rippled through her wavy hair. "I'm no stranger to secrets. Have you have lunch yet? I was on my way to my favourite Italian place. Best spaghetti in this part of the city, that's for sure."

"That was wonderful."

He had been quiet through the lunch, looking out through the window and slowly eating his spaghetti. He cleared is throat. "Do you remember Lilli?"

His eyes watched her as their gay first meeting had quickly taken a dark turn. "Lilli. What did she look like?"

"Lilli Fischer. Dark hair, slim, lived in the Russian district with her sick little brother who you visited. Now you remember?"

She swallowed. "Yes. Of course. I left before she did. I've never seen her since then."

He scowled at her. "She never left." He remembered that morning, he had been so full of hope. He was going to marry her. After all these years the thought still stung him like a wasp.

Magda was too fearful to reply. The Bill Barnes she had known in the past was never like this. She wasn't going to ask why. He watched her as if trying to read her thoughts. "My location is strictly classified you know. I've just returned from England a month ago. And what I've witnessed in England has made me a very dangerous man to talk to."

Magda's eyes widened. "I have no idea..."

"Are you a red now, Magda? Did you agree like poor Lilli had to? Spying on me? Well," a mirthless laugh was exhaled. "You can keep my information because it'll be nice to know that someone else will be having sleepless nights. I'm a man who knows too much. I'm surprised that the Russians didn't get me sooner."

"I'm not a communist." She whispered it urgently. "But..." She glanced around the busy restaurant. Someone might be listening in. She had watched all day if she was being followed. She dipped a hand in her bag to find an old restaurant matchbook and a pen. She scrawled a note and passed it to him while her eyes darted around for someone watching them.

He looked up at her, wrote back something small and passed it back. She looked down to read, Why do they want you? What have you done?

She passed her reply. She had ran out of room and the writing was scrunched up and messy. Because I know a man who they want. He is very dangerous. Almost inhuman.

"What?" He looked at her face and he could tell he hadn't misread it. He immediately lit a match and set the matchbook alight, watching it flame up in the ashtray.

She leaned over to whisper to him. "I want to explain everything but I don't think anywhere is safe. They could be waiting for me with a gun when I come out of here, I don't know..."

Bill tucked his glasses back in his pocket. "Listen to me. Remain too important to be killed, Magda. That's why they've allowed me to live so long."

"They?"

"I'm working for them, Magda. I oversaw experiments in England to weaponise diseases. We're carrying on the experiments that we abhorred the Nazi's for. Weaponising illnesses. We got volunteers by saying that we were doing the experiments to help treat the common flu. Someone died. I was employed to cover it up." He closed his eyes. "When you knew me Magda, I believed in right and wrong. I believed when I killed it was for the greater good. Defeating Fascism. When I was stationed in Berlin after if was over, I thought it was right that we help Berlin and the rest of Germany to re-build, unlike the communists. I even met someone who was once my enemy and we fell in love!" He opened his eyes.

Magda also wished for things to be simple again. "Now war is rumour and paranoia. We can't trust anyone."

"This man you know Magda, even if you hand him over you still know too much. How dangerous is he? Could you both make it back to Europe? Disappear for a couple of decades?"

Magda thought about it. It sounded like the perfect plan. But there was one hitch. "He won't leave. Not until he has his man. Ever heard about operation paperclip?" Her voice dropped into a whisper.

Bill's mouth dropped. "Good gr...you do know too much! Why?"

"He's after one of the scientists who escaped trial at Nuremberg. A Dr. Schmidt. Geneticist probably."

"He would have a different name by now. I may have even met him in England. I know most of them."

Magda couldn't believe her luck. But then, she doubted it. "Why are you helping me? Should I trust you?"

Bill gave her a sad smile. "I have nothing to lose now, little witch. I'm a walking dead man. I tried to run last month but they got me and even threatened my family. My wife knows I'm acting different but I can't tell her. I just hope they'll give me an honourable death. I don't want it to seem like suicide."

"You should meet Erik, tell him all you know. He might even be able to protect you if you decide to run. We could take you to the Canadian border."

"Protect me?" Bill rubbed a tired eye. "I don't know how useful he is at stopping bullets..."

"I've never seen him do it but he would try."

Bill Barnes looked across the table at Magda Maximoff. She stared back unflinchingly, meaning every word. Inhuman. He mused in wonderment. "Meet me tonight. The Park Sheraton Hotel. Room 748. Seven forty-five. Bring him."

"What if it's a trap? You're an old friend but I won't risk it."

"Or you won't risk him? He seems pretty invincible to me. Inhuman you said..."

"Fine. We'll be there."

"Take a gun with you. You should carry one at all times now. Maybe a knife too."

She saw the waiter coming over with the bill. She threw her share on the table and stood up to leave. "Bye for now, Bill."

* * *

 

People and cars moved beneath her on the streets like insects. She leaned into the window, imagining the drop if she were to fall. Her breath fogged up the glass since she was so close. She imagined the impact on the pavement or car where she would land. Metal would twist around her cold dead body and the street would stop to witness, marvelling that she looked like she was simply fast asleep.

"Come on Magda...think." She looked up at the sky, few clouds interrupted the perfect blue. She didn't want to betray Erik. She couldn't. That much was for certain now.

A gun that had been bought from a scary old pawnshop which had a matching scary old man with an itchy trigger finger. It lay uncomfortably and heavily by her side. A long knife lay on the other side under the dress.

She walked back towards her desk to get back to work. She typed violently as inky keys slapped the page.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**1944**

Pietro Maximoff sat in the office, he had nothing tying him to the chair and it was cushioned but he sat like it was made of sharp nails. His hands gripped the chair arms, eyes settling on a gramophone that was playing sad violin music. He hated the noise and strained his ears to hear the incessant barking of dogs, thunder and screams of people coming from outside. He looked down at his swollen arm. Characters had been burned onto his arm. Z-80967. "Z" for zigeuner.

He turned his head, the water slapped against the windows and the view of the sky was cold and bleak. The inside of the office however was cosy and books stood proudly in shelf upon shelf. He saw a few folders neatly stacked on the desk beside an old German wood carving of a wolf. He watched it as the door opened, a man who was yet another doctor. He smiled at Pietro like he was a guest, raising his hands in welcome. Two SS officers also came in, close behind and blocking the closing door.

"Finally, I have the pleasure of meeting the mysterious zigeuner from Birkenau! It's a bit of a walk, isn't it? The poor little children we use for research and testing are marched here a few times a week, but it's all in the interest of progress, no?"

Pietro thought of little Magda and where she was. Getting her away from here was the best he could do.

"I feel as if I'm indebted to that little girl of yours...those fools down there are concerned with only increasing the population with blonde haired, blue eyed twins...pathetic." He sat down and ordered one officer to bring in some schnapps. He ordered the other to stand outside and ensure they would not be interrupted. "You seem surprised at my opinion, Zigeuner. I'm not like the others you have encountered. You have me to thank for encouraging Himmler himself to spare the pure Gypsies. Of course our beloved Führer had reservations, but I had convinced Himmler that your race could later prove very useful, provided you were pure gypsy."

He watched the doctor with no emotion, dignified in his silence and dressed in rags. Pietro wondered if he even realised that he hadn't said anything. The man seemed more impressed with himself and it was sickening.

A knock on the door sounded. A respectful voice came from outside. "The schnapps, Herr Doktor Schmidt."

"Yes, yes. Come in." The officer set the bottle on the dark wooden desk and turned to leave. "Tell me when Mr..."

Pietro watched him with his weary green eyes. He did not reply with his name. Schmidt's smile didn't waver as he raised his eyebrows behind the wire glasses.

"Alright then, Mr. Zigeuner. I'll let you keep your name to yourself. But I would like some co-operation at least..." Schmidt took a gun from his desk, filling a small revolver with bullets. "Your race is a mystery to the modern world. I've read everything ever written about gypsies. It didn't take me long. You travelled to Europe over hundreds—if not thousands—of years ago. Descendants of ancient civilisations, Indians or Egyptians, you have been secretive. Your histories are verbal, the language is a mystery to scholars...all these things make me very interested in you."

Pietro watched him as he waved the gun a little from behind the desk, playing with it.

"When you bargained for your daughter's life, you made the bullets from a luger pistol disappear from inside a gun and took them out from your pocket. Very impressive. It was also clever. You knew that we had been looking for someone like you. Someone exceptional. I believe fate brought you to me."

Pietro could stay quiet no longer. It was not in his nature. He had been playing it safe but Schmidt needed to be taken down a peg. He could feel beginnings of fire creep into his veins, pooling in the ends of his fingers. "Have you ever been told your fortune before, Herr Doktor?" He reached for the schnapps, not taking a sip.

"No. Fortune never interested me, I'm only interested in the future. A future without the weak. A future where man has more power than ever. Where we evolve into something that is worthy of the word 'master race'. After the guards put your daughter on the train to Germany, I ordered they tried to find her and bring her back. She has vanished without a trace apparently. It's extremely hard for anyone to hide from me. Particularly a little girl."

"She has always been a lucky child." Pietro's finger twitched at the thought of cursing him. He had not only made bullets disappear that day. He had taken her identity card as the train moved away. It had been a stretch for his power but he managed it.

"Unlike your wife and other children. I would've reunited you all if I had been there...but it was just too late. But maybe you already knew their fortune. So it was no surprise." Schmidt looked amused at Pietro's quaking body before he controlled himself and regained composure.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Grief ate at his heart. His grandfather had taught him how to use his abilities and tricks to conceal them from outsiders. Pietro had used restraint though his entire life when hiding his magic. He thought with some pain that he would never be able to teach and train a grandchild of his own who had inherited the gift.

"Fortune-telling has been illegal since 1939, didn't you know, Herr Doktor? At Gypsy fairs and carnivals we had been predicting the war wasn't going to end well for Germany...the police caught wind of it."

Schmidt aimed his gun at Pietro. "Enough games Zigeuner. Remove these bullets from this gun before I shoot." His glasses glinted as the violin music that had been playing was over and the crackling of the gramophone filled the room.

"No." Pietro looked down the barrel. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard.

"Three..." The gun clicked in anticipation. "T—"

Pietro looked up, his green eyes had turned pale, almost white. In a second he let a bolt escape his body like a piece of lightening. Grabbing the hand that released the gun in shock, he wrapped thin strong fingers around Schmidt's left hand and Pietro let the hate of a curse smoulder into his flesh. The room was bathed in shocking cold light. A new voice with a filled the room, it spoke simultaneously in another ancient language, full of terrible authority.

"I CURSE YOU! MURDERER OF THE INNOCENT! WITH THIS CURSE I SENTENCE YOU TO AN EARLY DEATH! THE TORTURED SHALL BECOME THE TORTURER AND YOU SHALL DIE IN ANGUISH, THE ONE WHO WAS ONCE WEAK WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. HEAR ME, THIS IS YOUR CERTAIN AND UNCHANGEABLE FATE."

Pietro's veins appeared black and visible under his skin as he shook, all of his power being drained. He looked across at Schmidt, waiting to see that horrible smug smile replaced by horror. Instead he was reverberating, growing like he was absorbing the shocks. Pietro tore his hand away from Schmidt, electric still passing from him as papers flew wildly around the room and scorch marks appeared on Schmidt's white sleeve.

The room turned to normal. The doctor tutted, his head shook slowly like he was chastising a foolish child. Pietro's eyes turned back to the normal green as he took a step away.

"A curse? Is that all you had to hide from me? I'm sorry to disappoint but it was wasted on me, Pietro Maximoff." He looked at his hand, summoning the electric ball to jump dangerously in his hand. "How about you get a taste of your own medicine? Hmm?"

A flash. Then pain took him into darkness.

* * *

 

**1945**

Pietro Maximoff glared desperately through the bars, his strong build was now skeletal and his once handsome appearance had completely vanished in less than a year. Pietro was hidden away in the small rotten cell that was freezing in early January. His grey body mutilated in such a way that even the doctors who had carried out the crime loathed to look upon him. He had even been used to scare and intimidate a boy on his first night in the cells.  
Pietro gingerly touched the stump that was his wrist. His hand had been amputated. Sewn on to someone else. They're probably dead from an infection now, he thought before focusing on the flickering dim light down the corridor.

Pietro had a handful of gifts that had shaped yet sealed his fate. The gifts that the doctors wanted steal from him was the reason they made a special effort to keep him alive. He concealed everything and in turn they tortured him to try and uncover his power. His body was covered in aching reminders. He very much wanted to join his wife and children in death.

Schmidt personally carried out Pietro's torture for the short time before the boy came. Before the boy Schmidt obsessively poured over old books, some even in Latin, describing Indian and Egyptian myths of strange travelling people who could divine future and produce impossible magic.

Now Pietro could hear his screams sometimes in the afternoons. He heard many other screams all day long but Schmidt's surgery and torture rooms were nearby and the boy's voice reminded him so much of his own son Karl it was hard to take.

Long black hair covered his scarred eye as he heard footsteps. He felt the comforting heat that he commanded to his remaining hand as he waited for the enemy. A misty breath disappeared into the air. Some of the doctors still had a fascination with him, whipping the dead horse.

He called hello as heavy footsteps marched into a run and flew past him. Pietro balled his hand into a fist, closing his eyes and weakly felt some power come to him. But he was almost drained dry. He was weak and dying, his heart breaking every hour, minute, second. He focused on that desperation to conjure up the fire of magic. If he had been happy and in full health he could've escaped by now. But it was not to be.

"Dr. Schmidt. Everything is ready for your journey. The papers and experiments are in the car." The voice echoed and steps came thudding. Pietro narrowed his eyes, searching the dark. "But why will you risk being captured by the Russians, sir? The documents could be buried, or you can take them with you when you find passage to the Americas!"

Schmidt ignored the question but gave an order as they moved swiftly on by. "Keep my little Erik alive. I want him in his cell, guard him at all costs. I will be back. And those who keep the boy alive will be rewarded with the chance to escape."

"If you don't sir?"

A laugh echoed along with an opening door. It was unnatural.

Pietro looked up at the ceiling, hoping for freedom in life or in death. "Please." He whispered it quietly in his tiny cell of solitary confinement. That was the night the first bombs fell over the camp. The air was filled with fire and the guards ran for cover. The outside world had finally found them.

He heard the boy yelling for help as the very bricks of the building shook and orange light and smoke filled the gunfire air. Pietro vowed that he would save the boy from Schmidt.

 

* * *

 

"Zigeuner! Out!"

Pietro opened his eyes. A guard had a gun to his face in the early morning dark. Pietro got up slowly in pain. Outside sounded like anarchy. Shuffling footsteps filled the freezing corridors. He could taste the panic in the air as he spoke. "Wait a minute, friend. I cannot stand..." He responded hoarsely.

"You want a bullet in your head, Zigeuner? We march now to safety elsewhere. Stay here and the red army will tear you limb from limb. Now move!"

Pietro finished choking, his hand sliding across the wall. An eye appeared through his matted hair, watching him with sudden curiousity. "Solider? Where's your knife?"

The guard reached for his empty holder in a second of confusion. Pietro lunged with the stolen polished knife in his hand, slashing his face in one swipe. As blood poured down his injured face to blind him, Pietro stole both the pistol and keys with a stealthy swipe. He slipped around the door, shutting and locking the cell with the jangling keys as the screaming guard's cries hurt his ears with the intensity of the sound. The guard tried to desperately reach through the bars, banging the door.

He yanked the key out of the lock once he was sure it was secure before bending over to cough for a few with the exertion. He leaned against the banging wooden door, collecting his breath on the stone floor, hands over his ears. A child who was calling for someone was coming down the corridor. He shouted feebly if any guards were close.

The child ignored him, sobbing for a lost sister who had came into the building. "Child!" He grabbed a skeletal arm, bringing her close to his face. She struggled while sobbing the name Marta over and over, like him, she was too dehydrated for salty tears.

"Your sister's probably hiding from the guards. You should do the same. They're marching everyone out of the camps. They do not want the world to know what has happened here. Stay alive for your sister. Now, run! Hide!"

He watched as she hobbled off, bare feet slapping on the cold uneven floor. He creeped up the corridor, muffling his wheezing cough behind his shaking grazed hand. Some gunshots rattled from a machine gun and screaming sounded from outside. He stopped as he peered into empty cells, looking for fellow prisoners who might help him.

He staggered up the corridor, looking for the place where screams frequently came from. He heard a man approach, Pietro ordered the steps in the darkness to stop, gun pointed as the dim light illuminated the steel. The man who spoke back did not speak German. Pietro lowered the gun and walked on. He heard the sound of rain begin to reach a crescendo over the barracks.

He found one of the rooms, moving from key to key, trying to open it with only one hand. He peered in to find a room of filing cabinets. The terrible silence of the room told him that it they contained terrible things, he knew that if he looked, they could not be unseen.

He closed the door and continued his search for the boy Schmidt called "little Erik".

* * *

"So, the boy is your son?"

Pietro unhooked the boy on the bed. This place was alien to him and impossibly clean after months of living in filth and disease. He carefully took out some tubes, quite unsure what he was doing with his stump behind his back.  
"No. My sons are dead. They should've lived long lives, like my wife and daughters. But this world managed to alter their fate. Will you help me get him up?"

A man who had not offered his name stood watch. He had been promised the large collection of keys in return for watching for danger. "Why are you risking your life for him if he is a stranger? This boy is clearly even more important than the other children used for experiments. Did you know not even the guards dare kill one of the marked twins without the doctor's say-so?"

"He is—was somebody's child." Pietro looked down at his palm for a second and smirked a little. "And my life..." A short black burn had been seared into his lifeline. The rebound of a curse. The original curse still clung to Schmidt but it would take years or possibly decades to finally kill him. "I have only a short time left. I cannot escape it. I will die soon."

The prisoner had a similar German accent to Pietro but neither commented since that life seemed very far away. The prisoner didn't comment on the fact he was a gypsy or question why he was used for medical experiments and horribly disfigured. "In this place dying is very easy. Surviving is a full time job."

Pietro slid his mutilated arm underneath the limp body, taking off the clean shirt with a sign and replacing it with his own. "I want the boy to blend in as much as possible. He's quite healthy looking so we might have to rub some dirt on his face. What barracks has been forgotten by the guards, friend?"

"I heard some have been moved to where the gypsies used to be, but it's a lottery. Only yesterday some of them came out of a bunker and mowed us down like grass. They are determined to kill us. They are animals."

"They're afraid." Pietro lifted the boy down with difficulty, he wheezed. "The red army is coming. They will liberate the camp. You can tell they're getting closer. I hear they burned down 'Canada' the other night."

"The place where they kept the things they stole from us? Yes they did. Burning everything that will incriminate them. Some of us looted it the day before—went in search of food you see. Did you see the places they lived? The guards?" He took the boy's legs, moving through the abandoned building. "Comfortable, warm...food abundant. Of course, I heard one table was full of very nice things. They had poisoned it in hope we'd find it! Yet another way to kill us like vermin! But even the children who had searched for food saw through the trick. Thank goodness."

"I think he's starting to come around..." The man dropped the feet and helped Pietro pull him upright. "Here, the keys are yours." The man took them but stayed, watching the boy blink a little while slumped against Pietro.

"Why is he so important to the doctor?"

"He's a very special boy. Believe me. I've read his fate."

"Gypsy nonsense." The man scoffed. "Superstition is not good for the soul."

"No, my wife did not entertain it much either. She was a wise woman."

They staggered out into the cold morning with the boy. They had found a barracks peaceful enough to rest a while before trouble started again. The man had left momentarily and Pietro crouched down with a borrowed knife in hand. He watched the boy sleeping, head was slumped down since he was propped against the wall. Pietro took some cold slime and smeared it over the ghostly face.

"I'm sorry, Erik." Pietro took the knife and Erik's palm under his wrist, facing the light he found a line. Pietro felt the vague fire of magic as he cut along it before cutting along his own palm. "I have saved your life, Erik. And now, you owe me something." He pressed their hands together and squeezed tight. He closed his eyes and waited, thinking of Magda. His little girl out there alone. No family. No one. Lost.

"As I have saved your life, you owe me yours. Unknowingly, you have sworn yourself to me. I bind your life and mine, my blood and yours. You will protect my bloodline in their time of need until you die. Our fates shall be irreversibly entwined from this day. I call on these forces to protect you both—"

The sound of feet ended the quiet mumbling of Pietro. He felt the magic begin to ebb and looked up to see the familiar face, worry etched on his face. "The doctor! Schmidt! He's looking for him! The boy! Guards are searching everywhere! We will not escape this place with him!"

The sound of gunfire from a few buildings away woke the boy with a jump. Pietro stood. "Plenty of people have gotten out through the fence in the last day, looking for food. Haven't they?"

"They'll find us easier outside the camp. We cannot run or walk deep into Germany, there's snow and we shall die after a few days. It's impossible." He gathered the boy up, holding him by the shoulders.

Pietro took some snow in his hands, melting the small piece of perfect clean ice in his hands. "I want you to hide for a short while outside the fence, maybe until night. Then return. Schmidt and the rest will run before then. I am going out to distract them. He will think I know where his precious experiment has gone. I will die. He will leave."

The man looked at Pietro, watching the steady eyes and trying to see past his scars to find the man he once was. It was the man he imagined that he wanted to remember. A tall man with olive skin, black hair and a handsome smile. The man nodded and told Pietro that he promised to protect the boy. Pietro watched as the boy barely got on his feet. The man stopped, suddenly remembering something.  
"When he asks who saved his life, what will I say?"

Pietro Maximoff had gone.


	15. Chapter 15

"Erik, do you trust me?"

He stopped and looked around at her. She was dressed in light blue, the skirt fanned out from her small waist, her slim browned calves crossed over each other as she stood. It was one of her habits.  
He stood in the hotel lobby, looking up at the ceiling. His face was like stone. "We won't take the elevator. If we go through the hotel kitchens, we'll find the staff stairs."

Magda looked away, exhaling a sigh. "Let's go."

Room 748. It was seven forty-four. She stood there staring at the door, reading the numbers three times and looking at her small new wrist watch.  
Erik moved to knock the door but her hand reached out, stopping him with a firm arm. She stepped forward, knocking the door. She felt herself turn cold and tremble, her legs could've easily given up as she hovered an uneasy gloved hand over her handbag where a gun lay in wait.

The door opened quickly. "Get in!" A hiss urged them in.

Both found themselves in a hotel room that had been untouched. Erik moved to the only window, looking out with suspicion at the other buildings. Their edgy host locked the hotel door immediately and pushed a chair against the door. His movements were quick and shaky. He coughed a little and turned to them. "Is this the one?"

Magda ignored Erik as he turned to give Bill a scathing look before unhooking the telephone and checking under the desk for something. "Yes. Now, tell us what you know. Is it possible to find who we're looking for and also erase our existence from all records?"

Bill took off his glasses to rub at the red marks left on the sides of his nose. "All paper burns. But you would have to also eliminate everyone who knows about you. Including the people who roughed you up."

"I didn't tell you anything about them roughing me up." It was her turn to glower at Bill as her hand stayed close to her handbag clasp.

"They do it to everyone Magda, you had been drugged and the probably used some physical violence. We've used lysergic acid diethylamide—or LCD—before. Some are more susceptible than others. Many would've turned him in by now. You're very loyal for a woman."

"You didn't tell me this."

Magda's heart lurched and turned to Erik. "I told them nothing about you, only that I'd help them. But I'm not!"

Erik put down the mattress had lifted to inspect, straightening to full height. She shrunk back. Something about him had suddenly changed. "Have they been spying on us Magda? How long?"

"N—I mean, yes but I don't know how much they know..." Her flickering eyes looked up at him, wide and guilty.

Bill intervened, moving between them. "Back off. She was right to say nothing to you. You don't know these people. Someone like you should be more appreciative."

His eyes narrowed and a smile that made Magda step towards the corner appeared on his face. "Someone like me?"

Bill Barnes took a gun out of his pocket, aiming it at Erik who immediately reached out and whipped the gun into his face, knocking him down with a bloody eyebrow. He reached out for the shiny bronze ballpoint pen that lay at the writing desk.

"Erik. No! Stop it!"

"A man, Klaus Schmidt. Have you met him?" Erik took a picture from a book his breast pocket. It was a pencil drawing, the same kind the police would make from a witnesses discription.

"He's—"

The sound of a gunshot barged into the room.

Magda aimed her gun at the door, unprepared to shoot. Bill had already shot two bullets into the painted wood, sending chips into the air. Erik ignored the bullets completely.

"Do. You. Know. Schmidt." He motioned to the door. Another bullet tried to come in through it. More kicking. "If you don't help me you're dead, Bill. One way or another."

Madga ignored the both of them, overturning a table to hide behind. Her entire squatted body was quaking as she aimed for the door, peeking around it. She watched Erik, powerless to stop him. She didn't completely trust Bill, but she did not want him dead.

"I only met him once, at a conference." He swallowed looking at door. Whatever was behind there filled him with dread, greater dredd than dying at Erik's hand.

"What conference? Where?" Erik demanded, his teeth gritted. It was clear that the commotion outside made his temper and all the more short.

Bill Barnes swallowed yet again, his pale eyebrows furrowed in panic. A bullet sent him back into the wall. Madga turned as broken glass and sound whistled past her ear, cutting her arm and face. Someone had aimed for Bill with a sniper rifle in the building across from the hotel. Erik bent over him, lifting him by the shirt, desperate for a response as a blood poppy grew on his white shirt, spreading like ink.

"Come on! Say it!" He shook the man, he was still warm. "Damn." He watched the face for a sign there was one more sentence. There was nothing. Magda yelled from behind. She was warning him, but it was too late. As he turned he was thrown to the wall with a force that seemed unstoppable. He reached out as he impacted the wall, cracking through a few inches of patterned paper and plaster. As two pairs of hands slammed and hammered he summoned whatever he could as one of his arms was torn back to breaking point.

A scream, the sound of a body being dragged across the carpeted room to screeching protest and the smashing of glass made him stop completely. He stood and something from long ago resurfaced. He couldn't move. They had killed her. He ordered his body to move. Screamed at it from inside like he did that fateful day long ago.

Move the coin.

A shot and the huge body slumped over him. He turned around to see Magda, alive for now. She was struggling silently with her eyes fiercely on the knife that both of her arms was pushing away while another hand tried to both suffocate her and twist her head. The gun she had shot with lay on the floor.

He reached for the gun as a hand grabbed his shoulder and he felt the pain of a stab-wound tear through him, yelling to try to release the agony that filled his body. The gun in his hand he fought the pain and aiming the gun underneath his arm he shot his assailant at point-blank range.

He reached for the knife that bloodied Magda's throat, her teeth gritted and body shaking with effort. He pulled harder as he looked at one of their faces for the first time—the men who had come to take him and kill her. His face was now like the rest, looking on in fear as the metal blade was being pulled from him. Magda held her bloodied neck as she tried to pull away. The knife flew so fast it was a blur, lodging itself into the wall behind him. He aimed the gun, but he didn't have to.

Magda crumpled as the bullet sliced through his head. She closed her eyes tight as her feet hit the floor, falling as his arms went limp. Erik noted that he looked like a grizzly bear squeezed into a suit. She crawled from underneath him, breathing heavily while her shaking fingers stayed at her throat. She was clearly petrified he had cut or almost cut an artery.

She stood, taking the gun off the floor. Ears ringing, she staggered to the window, summer breeze blowing the settling debris a little. Peaking out, she looked past the broken panes and her bloody hands gingerly leaned on the cracking broken shards. She didn't want to count how many dozens of floors he had fallen. He lay on the pavement unseen behind a large curious crowd of pedestrians and cars surrounded them. Horns probably wailed on the street but she couldn't hear them.

Erik looked around at the carnage as he felt the knife that was stuck in his shoulder. He reached out for the wall as he focused on looking at the floor, his vision blurring. He hissed as he tried to move it out again.

A hand took his arm. She was pulling him away. Magda touched his face, forcing his eyes to hers. "We need to go." Fear and urgency contorted her expression as she saw the small knife buried in his shoulder. Nevertheless she forced him through the door, looking both ways before finding a place to hide before anyone saw them.

* * *

 

Magda listened at door 576. The room was empty. "Open this one." She heard the lock click and opened the door, his good side leaning on her as she escorted him in.

"We can't stay here Magda." He sat on the bed, again trying to get the knife out of his back.

"I know." She winced at the blade handle moving a little as he bit back the pain. "Stop moving it. You need a doctor." She looked around the room, opening the wardrobe to find nothing of use. "I'm going to get us out of here. Just stay put."

"You're covered in blood."

Magda marched to the bathroom and turned on the taps, wiping the excess off her neck. It had flowed down her chest and she dabbed at her dress before rinsing in the sink, watching the red disappear on her shaking hands. She looked up, her eyes meeting hers in the reflection. The scared girl staring back took a deep breath. She couldn't go back to her apartment. She was now on the run from people who outnumbered her, were stronger and probably knew more than she. Despite these things Magda Maximoff was going to survive. She had to.

"Just like you've always done." She whispered it under her breath. Now a determined woman looked back at her. "I'll be back in ten minutes with a way out and a ride." She called into the room.

 


	16. Chapter 16

It was evening and the early beginnings of a thunderstorm rumbled over the shabby outer city streets. The occasional car drove past, filthy water puddled in potholes. A woman in a large unfitted coat that covered her knees hid under a black umbrella. Muddied white leather shoes stood impatiently, her blue headscarf turned this way and that.

"Miss York."

Her head turned around. It was drained of colour, hard and sullen. "You the doctor?"

"Do you have the four-hundred dollars?" His cigarette stained finger touched his dripping nose. "In cash, like we agreed?"

"Yes. Where's the car?"

"Around the corner, we'll be there in ten minutes."

"No, you're going to take me where I tell you, Doc."

The untrustworthy looking man, his thin face and hooked downturned nose peaked out from under the turned up collar and wide rimmed hat. His expression soon turned sour at her demand. "You seem pretty cocky for a common whore."

"I guess I am. But I'm the one with the cash. So get in the car." She sneered. As she turned she blinked back the beginnings of angry tears, stomping as her wet tired feet rubbed uncomfortably in the shoes. A dog barked in the distance as she almost tripped over a crack.

"Left here. When you see a sleazy hotel park a block away."

"I hope you realise I've never performed an abortion in a hotel before. If there's a lot of blood you'll have to stay in the bath, if there is one."

She looked out, the view barely visible as rain battered down the windshield of the old second-hand car. The stormy air was still warm but as soon as the rain touched skin it was ice. Her headscarf covered her hair completely. "There will be blood...but it won't be mine. I got your number from a friend of a friend. I just needed someone who I could buy."

Like a 'whore'. She thought it angrily but thought it best not to antagonise him further. She hoped he would be good enough at removing and sewing up a bad wound.

"Where is she then?" He took out a cigarette, one hand on the wheel.

"Room twenty-three."

She opened the door, let the doctor in and locked the door behind her promptly. The corridors stank of stale cheap cigarettes since the place had very few windows. Hotel staff didn't give a damn either. But that's what made the place so perfect. A hotel where the drifters and the dregs of society who could afford a cheap room congregated. Magda was now an outlaw. She and Erik would adopt have false names. She had come up with the surname York in a panic. It was the second word she saw in the phone booth. The first was 'hot-dog'.

"This is an injured man. I didn't agree to this!" His eyes had found Erik sitting on the edge of the bed in shirt and trousers, breathing slowly while looking at the floor.

Magda stood her ground. "I want you to get that knife out of him. Now."

Twenty minutes of complaining and examination later the second-rate doctor had cut a large square through the shirt.

"Shouldn't you give him some kind of anaesthetic? For the pain." Magda paced about the room, still soaked but she didn't seem to notice. Her gut churned and every muscle pulled and went rigid when Erik let out a shaky exhale of pain.

"I've never used anaesthetic for these sorts of 'visits', Missy."

"Next time, could you find a doctor who doesn't look like a used car salesman?" He expelled the sentence to the floor. An indication of pain rumbled in the back of Erik's throat as the doctor who called himself 'Brooks' prodded around the wound.

"Someone is confident." Brooks curled his upper lip, somewhere between amusement and distaste. "We'll see how long it'll take before you can string a sentence together. This might take a few hours. Although nothing too complicated. If your blood can clot quick enough you shouldn't loose too much blood."

"Are you done talking yet? What can I do to help?" She rolled her sleeves up.

"Wash your hands and clean this scalpel. Then we'll begin."

Her hands were crimson. Old tears had long dried in streaks down her reddened blotchy face. Her teeth hurt since she had gritted them so hard for so long. The ends of her fingers and fingernails were black with blood. She watched the wound closing with every stitch, cleaned with cheap vodka. Erik had been given something to bite. The blood that he lacked made his head slump a little.

Removing the knife had taken a lot out of her. She felt close to fainting. She could only take deep breaths.

"So, how did he get a knife in his back?"

Magda looked through strands of frizzy wild hair. One was dark and stuck together with blood. "As an abortionist, I thought you of all people would understand the concept of secrecy. How do you do it?"

"How do I live with myself or how do I terminate the foetus?" Brooks poked the needle through skin, no doubt he was making a mess and a better doctor would stitch it neat.

"Both."

"You've clearly never had an unwanted pregnancy. The women who come to me are usually willing to kill themselves if they can't get rid of it. Happens every day Missy. Throwing themselves off roofs, swallowing turpentine...using wire coat hangers to get it out of them."

"Is dying better than having a illegitimate baby here?" Magda was confused and imagining the failed abortion attempts didn't help her swimming head. No one had really talked about it before. No one she knew.

"You'd be an embarrassment for a start. Some families would completely disown you. And say goodbye to marriage and a normal, respectable life." He tried to close the rest of the deep wound together, packing it with some gauze. Magda knew it would bleed heavily and need to be dressed, cleaned and re-dressed for weeks.

"I still wouldn't do it." Magda knew what he was thinking. He was saying to himself that she was delusional and needed to experience the 'real world'. But she knew that this place was the real dream.

"Any chance of happiness would be gone, Missy. Not only you but your child will be marked with the shame. On the birth certificate, the child will be illegitimate. You won't get far here with something like that haunting you." The doctor shook his head at her stubbornness.

"There's worse things to be marked with." Erik's head turned a little, talking for the first since the agonising knife was removed. Magda laid her hand gently on his shoulder. The thin layer of remaining dried blood that hadn't been wiped off on a towel cracked around her knuckles. To her surprise, Erik raised his right hand to his right shoulder. His hand covered hers and he held it there. It was cold but clean.

She stopped arguing with the doctor. She would just have to accept that was how he and a lot of others saw things. She was happy that Erik would be okay. She smiled and tried to blink back a second round of tears.

"Doctor Brooks?" Erik moved his fingers a little over hers. "I hope—for your sake—that you don't intend on telling a living soul about this. If you do, we will find you. And kill you."

The man glanced at Magda, hoping to see something in her that was less intimidating. He was disappointed as he saw a face that was full of steely resolve. "Five-hundred dollars."

After picking up his things and shoving the messy wads of bills into a suitcase he turned to take one more look at the strange and aggressive couple. Magda stood with a protective hand on Erik's shoulder, watching him with a red brown streak on her face. He left.

"There's a 'we' now, is there?" Her fingers laced with his.

"There's been a 'we' for a while."

"I was worried that was going to change today." She dabbed at the dappled skin around the wound with the last towel that was not drenched in blood. "You had been so angry when you found out I thought—"

"I had been angry with you. And myself for trusting you so easily." Erik moved away from her hand and laced his fingers together, looking at the dirty carpet. "I thought they killed you. I was up against the wall...I heard you screaming and the sound of a body being dragged across the room. A window smashed and I thought the worst."

"I know why they threw him out of the window. They wanted to make it look like a suicide. He was afraid that they would do that. Maybe it was best he died before they did it." She moved off the bed and kneeled on the floor.

"My point is, you nearly killed me."

"What?" Her brows furrowed. "I shot one of them! I killed for you today! I'll carry that around with me for the rest of my life."

His eyes met hers then resumed glaring at the floor. "It would've been best if we never met."

"Please, Erik." She put her hands out, turning his face to hers. "We have to start what we finished. I can't go back to my old life now, even if I wanted to. I'm staying by your side."

His hands grabbed her wrists. "New York is your home. You have friends here. You will miss them. What about your apartment? Possesions?"

She smiled incredulously, frowning. "You think I liked living there? Don't you remember how I grew up? Bricks and mortar are like shackles to me!"

Time stopped as the last of the summer sun peeked through the faded curtains. The sound of muffled yelling was the only thing that broke a perfect silence. She waited as he froze in thought with his fingers wrapped around her wrists. Her knees began to hurt after a while but she ignored it.  
She knew he was weighing up his options.

"When the CIA had been questioning you that day, what did they do to you?"

"Umm," she frowned with a smile, "the usual treatment, I guess. They tied me to a chair, forced me to drink some sort of tainted water—I coughed for about thirty minutes before I could talk—and then hit me until they thought I had told them everything." She shrugged. "In retrospect it could've been worse."

"I'll make them pay for what they did to you Magda. I'll protect you in the future and avenge your past. I promise you."

"Don't, Erik. Don't make a promise like that." Their heads came closer. Her eyes closed. "Because I know you'll keep it."

 

* * *

 

  
Magda closed the door behind her, locking it. Dawn shone through the muddy brown curtains. She carried a loaf and the morning paper under her arm. The injured Erik was stirring in bed, laying on his chest. He opened his eyes then closed them sleepily. "We've been hiding here for too long." He announced.

"Good morning to you too." Magda looked up from the morning paper. "It's only been two days. You can barely move without wincing."

"Magda, I've been on the run for years. I know what I'm doing. It's time."

She chewed a hunk of fresh bread, flicking a page. "Okay. Just tell me where we're going."

* * *

 

She slid out of the taxi and onto the Manhattan street, looking up at the building as the crowds who were rushing to work filled the pavement. They zig-zaged through waves of pedestrians and pushed through the large polished glass revolving doors.

"Erik?" Magda looked around the huge entrance hall nervously as polished ladies trotted by her, glancing at her sideways. She had never stepped foot in a Fifth Avenue department store before. She lowered her voice as the smell of Chanel perfume lingered around them. "You know, I know some really good stores that aren't so expensive..."

He smirked a little before gently touching the small of her back so she would continue walking through the maze of glass cabinets where shop girls stood and encouraged women to examine luxury leather goods, perfumes and gloves.  
"We are hiding in one of the richest neighbourhoods in New York and wearing yesterday's clothes under coats you stole from a hotel." He lowered his voice further, the corners of his mouth curling, "I also have a suitcase full of cash."

"Which floor today, Sir?" They reached an elevator where a young woman was dressed in a blue blazer and skirt. She smiled at him politely.

"Take us to the ladies department, please."

Magda lowered her chin into her coat. The elevator operator turned her head, scrutinising the shabby girl in a blue headscarf and dark sunglasses. "There's a salon on the ladies second floor." She smiled meanly as Magda shoved her hands in her coat as the air between them grew hostile. Finally they had reached their floor. She pushed by, getting out as quickly as possible.

"She's right, I'm a mess. I'm going to get a haircut before I look at clothes." Magda headed in the direction of a jungle of hats.

"What? She said nothing about you being a mess. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible."

Magda rolled her eyes. "She didn't need to speak. She said it with her eyes. Go and buy clothes." She marched off before an afterthought occurred to her. "Erik?" He stopped. "Brunettes or blondes?"

He frowned at her lunacy. "I don't give a damn, Magda. Just hurry up."

* * *

 

"These bangs are going to cover that scar on your forehead right up. You'll forget it's there at all!" She pursed her red lips in the busy and noisy salon. "Are you married yet?"

Magda watched herself swallow nervously as her newly dyed wet hair hung over one eye as a pair of scissors snipped her fringe. She had been given a magazine full of pictures and found a hairstyle.

"Engaged." She remembered that she had no ring. "Although it's unofficial." She lied.

The woman nodded enthusiastically with a strong Brooklyn accent. "Oh, I know all about that! I was engaged and married at sixteen, now I'm jus' waiting for the pitta-patta of tiny feet!"

Magda tried not to widen her eyes at the words 'sixteen' and 'married'. She changed the subject as her short dark hair was covered in foul-smelling chemicals and pinned into large neat rolls. "I've never dyed my hair before. I hope I suit it."

"Men do like Marilyn," the Brooklynite self-consciously touched her own peroxide blonde hair. "And I did mention that you have the features to look a lot like Lauren Bacall. But now you're a brunette we'll try for Audrey Hepburn. Now, let's get you under the heat." As Magda stood up the beautician's sharp eye saw something else unsavoury. "And while you're waiting, we need to get those nails filled and polished."

* * *

 

She wandered into the huge room that was painted white and with a ceiling that reminded her of frosting on wedding cakes. The morning sunlight shone on racks of clothes and the women who moved between them. Magda looked at a pretty blue dress, peeking at the tag on the hanger before dropping it in shock. Erik stood with his hands in his pockets, now dressed immaculately and wearing a new hat. She smiled, remembering how she once commented on his continual stylish attire. He had simply frowned.

"May I help you?" A snobby American drawl addressed Erik, ignoring Magda like the last one did.

"My fiancée needs a new wardrobe for her honeymoon. I want only the best."

"Certainly. If the lady would follow me, we will start measuring." She felt the busty older woman's disbelieving eyes settle on her, but Magda ignored the snub this time. The Erik uttering the word 'honeymoon' had caught her off guard. She obediently followed the beefy legs of the shop assistant to the fitting rooms in a dazed state.

"Oh my! No corset? Not even a bra? Only a slip!" Hands measured and Magda tried not to cross her arms protectively over her bare chest as her bust, waist and hips were carefully measured.

"I don't wear corsets much." Her reply was tentative. "I had a bad experience about a month ago with one." She stood almost naked as she waited in the changing room for underwear. The woman wasn't listening.

"Now, let's get you in this before you even think about putting on a dress." The bossy shop assistant pulled on the corset strings with surprising strength. Magda knew that it would be more uncomfortable if she had to sit down in it. "You have a twenty-six-and-a-half inch waist, but let's push for twenty-four." She pulled again, almost lifting Magda's feet off the ground. "As for your narrow hips, we can easily hide them. And longer skirts to hide those unfortunate skinny legs." The woman looked over her glasses, raising grey eyebrows. "Then some heels to make those ankles seem more...delicate."

Magda looked down at her toned legs in dismay, wondering why she never noticed she had ugly ankles before.

"Now Miss, these dresses have come all the way from Paris. By a wonderful designer called Pierre Balmain."

"That's great." She dismissed the names, not caring. "What I'd also like is some trousers—pants. Black. With matching sweaters."

"Black pants and sweaters?" The woman frowned. "We'll see what we can do..."

Erik had brought a new pair of sunglasses and driving gloves by the time she emerged with two ladies heavily laden with boxes behind her. Like Erik, she was now wearing the same outfit as the mannequins in the store windows. Her chosen dresses came in large boxes labeled 'Dior' while her pairs of new leather shoes rattled in boxes. A hat or two, a silk scarf and gloves had been thrown in for good measure.

Magda looked at herself yet again in the mirror. Her shorter hair was dyed dark brown, permed in loose waves that hovered over her shoulders. The large almond eyes now shone out, make-up made them cat-like.

"You've never looked better, darling." She shot him a look since he had put on an annoying affected middle-class American accent. She perched a blue hat jauntily on her head, rolling down the netting.

"If you suddenly drop me for a blonde, I'll get my revenge." She smiled dangerously as she looked over her shoulder in a vibrant blue dress.

The shop lady lingered and her eyebrows peaked expectantly behind glasses. "Will that be all of sir's purchases today?"

"I would like everything delivered to the hotel, I gave the man on floor four the address." Magda watched with distaste as the senior assistant stuck out her neck like a grey expectant pigeon, cooing agreement.

"And will you be paying by cheque sir?"

"Cash."

The woman nodded, the mention of cash was clearly scared in these temples devoted to worshiping money. "Wonderful sir, if you will follow me."

* * *

 

"Oof." Magda flopped onto the bed, stretching out her limbs since the bell boy had finally left them with a huge tip in his hand. "The Plaza. A suite in the Plaza!" It sounded hilariously ludicrous.

Erik had opened the balcony doors immediately, seemingly more at ease in the luxurious surroundings. "It's a better view than last time." He looked out onto Central Park, an oasis of green in the vast city. Magda reluctantly got up from the heavenly bed to see it in all it's glory.

"It looks so beautiful." She put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. "I could definitely stay here for a while." She smiled.

"Don't relax too much. There's much to do." He took off his sunglasses, folding them into his breast pocket.

She slipped her arm around his. "I know, I know. But for now let's ring room service, and drown our sorrows in champagne and whatever rich people eat for lunch. I'm starving."

* * *

 

The summer of 1956 was hottest in August that year. The people in New York at that time were oblivious like any other generation, oblivious that the future generations would look back at that exact place and period of time and envy their elders who lived it.  
Writers and poets there, some known and some on the cusp of celebrity and fame—were the contemporaries who wished for something else or some place else.

The world turned as it always had, another day in history. People lived their intertwining lives, ordinary and extraordinary simultaneously. Like any other time in history there was young and old. Like any other moment in history there was war and peace. There was and always will be life and death.

The summer of 1956 was indeed no exception.

* * *

 

"I'm glad it didn't bleed out onto your t-shirt for once." Magda dabbed the wound, pinky sore skin surrounded the gash in the last of the evening light that shone through the balcony doors. The ointment stung for sure, but he never complained. "I like you in just an undershirt. You would suit the James Dean look, t-shirt and jeans...you already have a good scowl. A real rebel without a cause." She hummed out a little musical laughing sound.

"Very practical for blending in too..." He growled sarcastically. "Too bad I don't give a damn."

"I'm only kidding Erik...you suit the Frank Sinatra look better anyway. You're always so well dressed and dapper."

"Purely accidental on my part. I never pick what I wear. That's what I pay shop assistants for. They care so I don't have to."

She smiled at his grumbling. "So that's the secret. The secret to looking like Erik Lehnsherr." Totally ignoring any complements most people would be flattered by, he asked her testily if she had finished dressing the wound. She cut another piece of bandage. "I'm nearly finished. I'm sorry for teasing you. I thought it would be a distraction. From...everything." She stuck the last piece on. "There. Done."

He turned his head, watching her with peripheral vision but not directly. "I'm not usually distracted."

She lay back on the bed, reclining on the white sheets. She propped herself up on her elbows. "Are you annoyed at me for distracting you? Or not being good enough at distracting you?" He stayed silent. She ventured a question. "Erik, what do you like about me? Am I attractive? Pretty?"

He turned to look at her. Shirtless, he had the white t-shirt balled in his hands. Magda remembered suddenly she would not be nineteen forever. Neither would he be eternally twenty-six. Their faces would someday be lined with wrinkles, their naturally lean bodies would soften and their joints would stiffen.

"I don't really believe in beauty." He leaned closer as her face darkened. "So who's to say?"

"Maybe it would've been best if you lied." She tucked her feet away as his hand reached for them, her brain told her it was foolish but her pride was stung and reacted instinctively. He reached for her again.

"Magda, please. Not this again." He caught her as she had tangled herself in the sheets on the large bed. He waited for her to stop struggling half-heartedly for a moment.  
His hand slid up the contours of her face, forcing her to gaze at him. "Listen to me...I want you." His thumb stroked a reddened cheek as she froze. "I want you because you're strong—" A disbelieving look flitted over her face. "You are also loyal. And I don't have to lie to you." A morbid half laugh came from his chest, "did you know I haven't introduced myself by my real name in over ten years? But when I met you that night, I said it. Before I knew it, I had told a complete stranger who I really was. Instead of simply seducing you and tricking you into working for me—I wanted you to be my accomplice."

Her eyes broke contact, looking down at her hands that clutched the white bed linen tightly. He swept a piece of hair away from her reluctant face, revealing the deep scratch of raised skin on her forehead. A small battle scar. "I'm sorry that Barnes died. I'm sorry for what those people—the CIA—did to you. No doubt they told you about the things I did too. The secretaries I used. Then there's the people I..."

"Yes. They showed me the pictures." Magda realised that she had been painfully tensing her body. She tried to relax her stiff shoulders.

"The world is better off without them. I promise you." His hands continued to cup her face. "And as for the women I seduced...It was necessary." She looked up at him again, frowning a little but giving up.

Erik's eyes roamed down to the deeper cut on her neck that had been cleverly concealed with a cheap pearl necklace. He reached behind her neck with one hand and unhooked the clasp easily. Magda was impressed at his dexterity before remembering he could control metal. She had at that moment completely forgot.

He touched her scar so softly, it tingled. "It's not so bad." She mumbled. She could feel herself inexplicably start to tremble involuntarily. Her shortness of breath forced her to break the last word into two syllables. He softly kissed it. She tried to pull herself together, her head was calm, collected. Her pulse was not.

She closed her eyes. How did her life change so quickly? He was kissing her, she was blindly hitching layer after layer of blue fabric and netting with one hand to gain free movement. Another hand joined hers as she was lowered onto the sheets. She continued telling herself that time would never stand still while a voice in her head warned her to halt immediately. The room darkened as the last warm rays of sun kissed the trees of Central Park a short goodbye.

He pulled back only a few inches away. Magda felt his hand resting on her lower ribs, falling and rising. He softly whispered to her for the first time since they met. Magda replied with a shaky smile before looking for the zip of her damn dress.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it doesn't suck too much :)  
> Please leave feedback and criticism!


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